V 


f 


The  End  of  the  Beginning. 


The 


End  of  the  Beginning. 


.  ^ 


Boston: 

Little,  Brown,  and  Company. 
1896. 


Copyright,  1896, 
BY  LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND  COMPANY 


Utttbersttg 
JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I.  A  FRIEND  OF  THE  DEAD      ....  7 

II.  A  BOOKSELLER'S  ROOF-TREE      ...  30 

III.  THE  JOY  OF  LIFE 44 

IV.  HERE  AND  THERE 63 

V.  THE  SURGE  OF  THE  SEA 98 

VI.  AN  HEIR  OF  THE  AGES 130 

VII.  A  SUMMER  STORM 154 

VIII.  WHAT  OF  THE  NIGHT? 188 

IX.  TIME'S  FOOL 221 

X.  HIPPOCRATES 248 

XJ.  ONE  OR  Two 273 

XII.  THE  WORLD  ROLLS  EASTWARD  .     .     .  300 


"  Life  is  love,  and  love  is  eternity? 


THE 

END  OF  THE  BEGINNING. 


I. 

A  FRIEND   OF  THE  DEAD. 

dead  folks  like  to  have  flowers  grow 
over  them  ?  "  said  the  little  girl  to  her 
self,  as  she  sat  on  the  edge  of  the  stone  table 
that  surmounted  the  old  Bexley  tomb,  and 
dangled  her  legs  optimistically.  Amoret's 
own  handful  of  whiteweed  and  buttercups  had 
been  plucked  outside  the  mossy  brick  wall  and 
rusty  iron  gate  at  the  front  of  the  churchyard ; 
for -her  seven-year-old  conscience  had  some 
how  guessed  that  even  constant  visitors  should 
not  take  liberties  in  an  enclosure  of  which, 
after  all,  the  underground  inhabitants  were  the 
proper  owners.  But  her  eye  was  caught  by 
the  solid  green  and  red  buds,  plentifully  burst 
ing  on  the  tangled  old  rose-bush  just  beyond 


8  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

the  tomb;  while,  a  little  farther  off,  she  saw 
the  waterless  vase,  the  snow-soaked  ribbon,  the 
withered  leaves,  and  the  dirty  white  live-for 
ever  that  lay  on  a  last  year's  grave.  It  seemed 
clear  that  buried  people  did  not  wish  to  be 
forgotten  all  at  once,  and  that  they  agreed 
with  her  in  thinking  flowers  the  prettiest 
things  in  any  world. 

Nobody  ever  put  any  flowers  on  the  crum 
bling  yellow  marble  of  the  Bexley  memorial, 
or  took  the  time  to  try  to  spell  the  letters  of 
the  inset  metal  tablet  that  commemorated  the 
alleged  virtues  of  Anthony,  armiger,  and 
Priscilla  his  wife.  But  the  slab,  resting  table- 
wise  on  four  carved  pillars  of  not  impossible 
height,  was  a  favorite  place  for  Amoret  to 
play  tea.  One  of  the  legs,  to  be  sure,  was 
suspiciously  insecure,  seeming  to  hang  from 
the  top  rather  than  to  support  from  beneath ; 
and  ever  since  a  woodchuck  and  a  subsequent 
rainstorm  had  visibly  burrowed  into  the  mys 
teries  below,  Amoret  had  not  been  untouched 
by  occasional  ideas  of  mortal  collapse  and 
confusion  at  her  little  banquets. 

Sometimes  she  was  all  alone  when  she  ate 
her  bits  of  ginger-snap  and  apple,  and  drank 
sweetened  water  in  economical  sips  from  a  tiny 
cup  whose  thickness  was  somewhat  dispropor 
tionate  to  its  height.  Now  and  then  she  in- 


A  Friend  of  the  Dead.  9 

vited  Joan  and  Bob  to  share  the  festivities; 
but  the  lively  Joan,  being  a  little  older,  was 
afraid  of  graveyards,  and  told  too  many  buga 
boo  stories,  while  Bob  was  only  a  boy,  and 
therefore  could  not  be  expected  to  know  that 
it  was  improper  to  eat  a  whole  apple  all  at 
once,  or  to  throw  away  his  teacupful  of  sweet 
ened  water  because  it  was  too  warm  to  be  fit 
to  drink. 

Amoret  had  never  been  afraid  of  death,  and 
always  liked  to  come  to  the  "  death's-acre,"  — 
the  funny  phrase  her  grandfather  had  used  the 
other  day,  when,  pet  doll  in  hand,  she  was 
starting  out  for  an  afternoon  in  this  favorite 
haunt.  Once,  to  be  sure,  she  had  seen  a  dead 
man  in  a  box  they  called  a  coffin ;  and  that 
box,  after  more  or  less  singing  and  talking, 
had  been  buried  in  a  neatly-cut  hole  in  this 
very  ground ;  now  there  was  a  pile  of  fresh 
dirt  heaped  over  it,  with  a  pine  peg  driven  in 
at  one  end,  because  no  gravestone  had  yet 
been  set  up.  When  she  had  been  lifted  in 
her -grandfather's  arms  to  look  at  the  face  of 
this  old  Mr.  Woodcom,  the  tailor,  as  he  lay  in 
his  coffin,  it  seemed  to  her  that  it  was  very 
white ;  and  she  noticed  that  his  dickey  was 
stififer  than  usual  and  his  scanty  hair  more 
carefully  brushed,  and  that  he  had  gone  to 
sleep  with  his  lips  tight  shut  and  his  eyes  a 


io  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

little  open  at  the  bottom  of  the  lids.  Then 
they  carried  him  out,  and  he  never  came  back 
again  to  the  shop  where  he  used  to  work  every 
week-day,  or  to  the  old-fashioned  garden  where 
he  trimmed  the  bushes  every  Sunday.  She 
had  at  first  been  puzzled  by  this  failure  to 
return,  and  still  more  grieved  by  the  obvious 
thought  that,  six  feet  under  ground,  one  could 
hardly  find  air  to  breathe,  or  water  to  drink, 
or  a  chance  to  walk,  or  light  to  read  by,  or 
flowers  to  pick.  But  old  Mr.  Woodcom  was 
at  least  as  well  off  as  the  poor  little  canary 
she  had  found  dead  in  the  bottom  of  the  cage 
a  month  before,  and  subsequently  wrapped  in 
cotton  and  duly  buried  with  more  tears  than 
anybody  shed  for  the  tired  but  not  very 
amiable  tailor.  The  canary,  she  was  sure, 
could  not  be  unhappy,  with  a  blue  ribbon 
round  its  neck,  and  its  pink  feet  so  prettily 
turned  upward ;  and  why  should  Mr.  Wood- 
corn  complain  of  what  was  good  enough  for 
the  little  yellow  singer?  Besides,  Amoret's 
grandfather  had  told  her  that  the  wielder  of 
the  scissors  had  gone  "  where  the  wicked  cease 
from  troubling  and  the  weary  be  at  rest,"  — 
which  phrase  she  duly  memorized  because  it 
sounded  pretty,  and  localized  as  descriptive  of 
a  fairy  grotto  underground,  easily  accessible 
to  Mr.  Woodcom,  the  canary,  the  Bexleys,  and 


A  Friend  of  the  Dead.  1 1 

other  graveyard  people,  but  having  no  ex 
ternal  entrance. 

So  Amoret  found  nothing  unpleasant  in  the 
graveyard,  but  many  a  joyous  thing  and  sunny 
experience.  It  was  fun  to  spell  out  the  chil 
dren's  names  on  the  smallest  stones,  and  guess 
whether  the  boys  and  girls  were  having  a 
good  time  now,  and  what  they  looked  like,  — 
if  they  were  lively  like  Joan,  or  rough  and 
rather  selfish  like  Bob,  or  as  fond  of  birds  and 
flowers  as  she.  Then,  too,  the  enclosure  was 
attractive  in  itself,  and  pleasantly  situated. 
The  old  brick  church  at  one  end  was  ugly 
enough,  but  Amoret  did  not  know  it;  and  she 
liked  to  look  at  the  slowly  turning  vane  far 
up  in  the  sky;  to  watch  the  pigeons  flutter 
through  the  boards  of  the  belfry,  or  to  hear 
the  bell  strike  the  hour  —  which  occurrence, 
bothersomely  enough,  was  regularly  at  three 
minutes  past  the  time  when  the  minute-hand 
pointed  straight  up  to  XII.  But  everything 
in  the  gray  and  gently  dilapidated  old  town  of 
Bellwood  seemed  a  good  while  ago,  or  just 
around  the  corner;  so  why  should  the  official 
timepiece  affect  any  superior  or  annoying 
accuracy? 

Church,  graveyard,  and  surmounting  elms 
certainly  made  a  place  to  please  young  eyes 
or  old.  The  turfy  yard  was  a  little  beyond  the 


1 2  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

small  bustle  of  the  village,  and  it  had  no  near 
or  constant  neighbor  but  the  slow  river  that 
passed  in  a  leisurely  curve  on  its  southward 
way.  Amoret's  grandfather,  the  old  book 
seller,  who  used  to  like  to  walk  here  of  a  Sun 
day  afternoon,  once  solemnly  said  that  the 
stream  was  a  "  life-in-death,  like  the  proces 
sion  of  vitality  toward  mortality."  Just  what 
this  meant  was  not  apparent  to  Amoret's  small 
brain,  and  it  made  the  yard  seem  a  little  more 
shivery  than  before  —  until  she  saw  the  sun 
light  dancing  on  the  waters  under  the  pine- 
clad  hill  on  the  opposite  bank,  and  heard  the 
first  thrush  of  the  season  call  from  a  shady 
four-o'-clock  nook  still  farther  away. 

Week-days,  indeed,  there  used  to  be  swift 
trains  on  the  railroad  that  somewhat  incon 
gruously  filled  the  narrow  space  between  the 
graveyard  fence  and  the  river.  Once  Amoret 
was  standing  by  the  iron  door  of  an  old  tomb 
at  the  eastern  end  of  the  yard,  and  the  passing 
rumble  of  the  flying  wheels  jarred  its  door  so 
that  it  audibly  rattled.  Joan  was  there,  too, 
and  ran  away  with  a  scream,  saying  that  she 
was  sure  the  buried  people  were  shaking  it 
and  trying  to  get  out;  but  Amoret  knew 
better,  for  she  had  often  stood  on  the  wooden 
bridge  that  crossed  the  tracks  nearer  home, 
and  had  felt  the  boards  tremble  in  the  increas- 


A  Friend  of  the  Dead.  13 

ing  roar  of  the  coming  locomotive.  Some 
times,  on  such  occasions,  the  smoke  and  the 
racket  made  it  seem  advisable  to  jump  down 
from  her  perch  on  the  bridge  rails,  over  which 
peered  her  bravely  determined  little  face ;  but 
usually  she  endured  the  coming  of  the  train 
more  courageously  than,  in  her  dreams,  she 
ever  could  await  the  approach  of  the  immiti 
gable  countenance  that  sometimes  came  on 
and  on,  nearer  and  larger  and  grimmer,  until 
she  awoke  with  a  cry  that  brought  grandpa  to 
her  bedside.  This  was  Amoret's  one  horrid 
vision  of  the  night,  —  shared  by  many  a  child, 
and  sometimes  half  remembered  when  a  weary 
man  ends  life  and  all  by  throwing  his  tired 
body  and  harassed  brain  beneath  the  oncom 
ing  engine  whose  headlight  lures  him  like  the 
moth  to  the  fruitless  flame.  For  the  most 
part,  however,  Amoret's  night  was  long  and 
dreamless,  unless,  just  at  dawn,  she  had  visions 
of  some  strange  power  of  keeping  herself  afloat 
in  the  air  by  just  wishing  to  do  so,  —  a  power 
she  was  sure  was  possessed  by  every  one  of 
the  dead  people  who  had  gone  to  their  under 
ground  fairyland  after  the  uncomfortable  pre 
liminary  of  burial. 

As  far  as  the  railroad  was  concerned,  the 
people  under  the  gravestones  did  not  care  for 
it  at  all,  in  Amoret's  opinion ;  nor  did  most  of 


14  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

the  faces  that  flew  by  in  the  car-windows  give 
so  much  as  a  single  glance  at  the  tombstones, 
or  the  church-tower,  or  the  pigeons,  or  Amoret 
and  the  flowers.  Amoret,  however,  was  rather 
glad  that  the  railroad  ran  so  near;  for,  after 
all,  when  she  was  tired  of  her  tea-table  on  the 
tombstone,  or  of  putting  vexatiously  big  flow 
ers  in  her  doll's  fluffy  hair,  or  of  watching  the 
birds  and  wondering  what  they  were  saying, 
she  liked  to  hear  the  whistle  of  the  up-train, 
and  to  have  a  chance  to  run  and  see  the  busi 
ness-like  engine  and  its  following  of  cars,  all 
acting  just  as  though  they  were  the  most  im 
portant  things  in  the  world. 

Children  and  puppies  have  a  catholic  in 
terest  in  things  in  general ;  and  life,  to  Amoret's 
happy  little  self,  was  so  pleasant  a  thing  that 
she  was  inclined  to  personify  not  only  grave- 
dwellers  and  locomotives,  but  such  trees  or 
hills  or  houses  as  most  struck  her  fancy, — 
windows,  at  any  rate,  looked  just  like  eyes. 
Thus  she  had  plenty  of  companions,  and  in 
the  common  fashion  of  childhood,  she  was  so 
exceedingly  busy  all  day  long  that  at  early 
bedtime  she  was  very  tired,  but  not  half 
through. 

One  night,  when  she  had  climbed  into  her 
grandfather's  lap  after  a  somewhat  unusually 
complicated  day,  she  informed  that  individual 


A  Friend  of  the  Dead.  1 5 

that  the  world  was  so  full  of  things  that  she 
did  n't  have  time  to  catch  up.  "  You  little 
rascal,"  said  he,  "  when  I  hold  you  in  my  lap  I 
have  to  carry  a  poet,  a  painter,  an  architect,  a 
soldier,  a  playwright,  an  actor,  a  baby-tender, 
a  preacher,  a  cook,  a  botanist,  and  the  pro 
prietor  of  a  menagerie ;  "  but  the  conglomera 
tion  of  personalities  was  fast  asleep,  and  missed 
the  compliment. 

To  crowd  the  time  the  more,  as  Amoret 
soon  found  out,  there  were  the  four  seasons 
and  the  twelve  months,  with  their  procession 
of  beautiful  things  set  right  before  the  eyes 
of  a  New  England  child.  In  March  the  wind 
in  the  north  and  the  sun  in  the  south  held 
pitched  battles,  and  sometimes  the  early  dande 
lion  on  a  warm  housebank  got  covered  with  two 
feet  of  snow.  The  first  of  April  the  holes  in  the 
river  ice  grew  bigger,  and  the  patches  of  water 
by  the  banks  stretched  wider;  until  at  length, 
with  crash  and  grinding  and  stately  sweep,  the 
ice  went  out  and  the  spring  freshet  rose  so 
high  that  it  swept  back  into  the  cellar  of  grand 
father's  bookshop.  Then  Amoret  would  sit  in 
the  eastward  window  and  watch  the  great  ice- 
sheets  go  sailing  down  the  strong  current  in 
the  middle  of  the  stream ;  while  alongshore 
the  lazier  and  reluctant  cakes  went  grumbling 
and  fighting  like  polar  bears  disturbed  in  their 


1 6  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

sleep.  And  spring  flew  in  as  winter  floated 
out,  for  then  came  the  chipping-sparrows  and 
began  their  monotonous,  cricket-like  song  on 
the  tree  across  the  street;  and  the  frogs  piped 
at  nightfall  on  the  marshland  of  the  Plains. 

Sometimes  May-day  was  lovely  and  some 
times  it  was  shivery,  but  soon  the  May-flowers 
surreptitiously  stole  forth  on  Clark's  hill,  right 
on  the  heels  of  the  belated  snow,  which  still 
lay  unmelted  in  dark  hollows  here  and  there, 
beneath  the  stumpy  hillsides  most  liked  by 
the  pink  and  white  blossoms.  Picking  May 
flowers,  thought  Amoret,  was  like  finding  coins 
in  dreams  —  first  one  by  chance,  and  then 
more,  and  then  a  handful. 

And  June  !  Amoret  thought  God  must  have 
made  June  just  for  fun.  There  was  more  green 
ness  than  flowering,  and  never  a  fruit  as  yet; 
the  world  seemed  just  old  enough  to  be  rich 
and  full,  but  not  so  old  as  to  suggest  any 
troublesome  past.  As  for  the  future,  if  you 
thought  of  it,  the  idea  meant  nothing  but 
the  going  on  and  on  of  such  joy  as  each 
new  morrow  of  early  summer  found  waiting 
at  hand.  One  small  girl's  head  could  not  take 
it  all  in;  but  that  head  philosophized  a  good 
deal,  though  not  for  long  at  a  time.  The  ever 
lasting  Why  of  childhood  got  its  answers 
from  within  as  well  as  from  without;  for 


A  Friend  of  the  Dead.  1 7 

when  Amoret  was  dissatisfied  with  replies 
she  thought  evasive  or  insufficient,  she  fell 
back  on  the  right  to  put  old  truths  into  new 
theologies.  Of  all  the  creeds  of  the  world  a 
child's  is  not  the  worst. 

Little  by  little,  as  she  grew  older,  Amoret 
learned  the  names  of  May's,  June's,  and  July's 
flowers,  but  she  loved  the  blooms  before  she 
knew  what  they  were  called.  Sometimes  she 
made  up  names  for  them,  especially  when 
she  found  them  "  all  by  her  lone,"  and  loved 
them  with  the  pride  of  original  discovery. 
Wakerobin,  and  marsh-marigold,  and  Dutch 
man's  breeches  were  good  enough  names,  and 
she  retained  them ;  but  at  first  she  called  vio 
lets  "  old-woman's  blue  dresses,"  after  she  had 
picked  one  to  pieces  and  seen  the  two  little 
legs  in  their  tub;  while  bloodroot  was  "  white- 
carpet,"  columbines  were  "  red-tassels,"  and 
anemones  were  "  wood-flowers."  As  the  sum 
mer  went  on,  the  roses  were  the  best  loved, 
and  the  wild  ones  the  dearest  of  all,  though 
they  persisted  in  reddening  the  northern  wood- 
paths  a  month  later  than  they  ought,  accord 
ing  to  a  little  poem  Amoret  knew  by  heart. 
Then  the  homely  dandelions  were  always  at 
hand  with  all  their  miscellaneous  uses  :  little 
piping  trumpets,  greens  for  the  dinner-table, 
ringlets  over  the  ears,  and  fortune-telling  fluft 


1 8  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

to  be  blown  away  with  one  prodigious  blast  of 
distended  cheeks.  And  there  was  plenty  of 
the  whiteweed  the  farmers  hated  and  the  city 
visitors  called  daisies;  of  bluets  all  over  the 
meadow;  and  of  buttercups  the  children  held 
under  each  other's  chins  to  see  whether  they 
liked  butter  or  not. 

Once,  on  a  long-memorable  day  in  late  sum 
mer,  when  her  grandfather  took  her  for  ever 
so  long  a  walk  in  the  woods,  Amoret  found 
an  Indian  pipe,  just  like  the  one  Mike  Bryan 
smoked,  only  whiter,  and  growing  in  the  shade 
of  some  big  trees.  She  took  it  home  and  laid 
it  away  in  cotton  to  keep  forever,  it  was  so 
pure  and  pretty,  —  only,  alas  !  to  find  it,  a  little 
later,  all  black  and  clammy,  like  a  corpse-plant 
indeed.  But  if  blooms  would  decay,  or  shrivel 
like  the  flower-de-luces  that  used  to  be  so 
pretty,  more  could  be  got  next  day,  or  next 
year,  for  Amoret  at  length  attained  to  a  knowl 
edge  of  time's  boon  as  well  as  its  bane ;  of 
"  by  and  by  "  as  well  as  "  never  again." 

Overhead,  in  the  time  between  mayflower 
and  golden-rod,  many  a  bird  nested  and  sang. 
Up  in  the  graveyard  trees  were  robins,  and 
orioles,  and  kingbirds  and  sparrows,  while  out 
in  the  open  fields  to  the  northward  the  bobo 
link  "  flew  in  scallops,"  as  Amoret  said,  and 
sang  his  delirious  song  on  his  way  to  his  teet- 


A  Friend  of  the  Dead.  19 

ering  perch  down  among  the  tallest  grasses 
and  clovers.  It  was  plenty  of  work  for  one 
small  girl  to  watch  the  procession  of  songsters 
from  the  arrival  of  the  first  bold  robin  while 
snow  was  still  on  the  ground,  until,  in  late  fall, 
the  modest  little  flocks  of  nondescript  flyers 
used  silently  to  flit  through  the  wayside  bushes 
and  flutter  away  together  at  the  sound  of  an 
approaching  step.  They  came  from  nowhere 
and  went  somewhere ;  "  down  south,"  said 
Bob,  superciliously,  in  an  expression  as  vague 
in  Amoret's  mind  as  would  have  been  the 
"  land  east  of  the  sun  and  west  of  the  moon." 
More  methodical  were  the  wild  ducks,  that 
migrated  in  a  business-like  V  with  some  strong- 
minded  leader  at  the  advancing  point. 

To  Amoret  there  was  a  special  charm  about 
the  high-flying  birds,  such  as  the  chimney 
swallows  that  came  out  of  the  big  chimney  of 
the  old  academy  on  cloudy  days  or  at  sunset 
time.  How  they  skimmed,  and  swam,  and 
darted,  and  turned  !  And  then  at  late  twilight 
they-  all  formed  in  a  great  ring  that  slowly 
circled  above  the  square  top  of  the  yawning 
brick  flue,  until  one  broke  away  and  darted 
down  into  the  sooty  monument,  followed  by 
two  or  three,  and  at  last  by  the  whole  ring 
that  swiftly  poured  in  until  every  bird  was  out 
of  the  air,  and  it  seemed  as  though  the  whole 


20  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

chimney  could  contain  no  more,  but  must  be 
all  wings  and  flutter  and  chatter. 

It  would  take  a  book  to  tell  of  everything 
that  Amoret  saw  as  the  year  went  by;  once 
she  began  to  make  such  a  book,  but  her  slow 
printing  got  no  farther  than  the  top  of  the 
fourth  page,  with  nothing  said  as  yet  about 
the  long  drought  of  that  melancholy  August, 
when  the  forlorn  air  was  full  of  smoke  from 
the  burning  Canadian  woods,  and  the  sun 
hung  in  the  murky  sky  like  a  great  copper 
pot,  and  all  the  little  girls  were  sure  something 
awful  was  going  to  happen ;  or  the  hot  day  in 
middle  September,  so  swiftly  followed  by  a 
premonition  of  coming  frost;  or  October's 
red  maples  and  purple-brown  oaks ;  or 
November's  leafless  trees  and  six-pointed 
crystal  stars  falling  on  your  sleeve  at  Thanks 
giving  time ;  or  December's  snow-fort ;  or  the 
old  horse  on  the  river  in  January,  walking  to 
and  fro  to  plow  the  cutter's  lines  on  the  two- 
foot  ice.  And  then  there  was  that  wonderful 
sleigh-ride  in  February,  when  the  moon  was 
full  and  every  twig  and  stone  and  sweep  of 
crusted  snow  was  covered  with  a  glassy 
coat  of  pure  transparency.  As  the  sleigh- 
bells  jingled  past  her  summer  haunt  in  the 
graveyard  that  night,  Amoret  looked  through 
the  glittering  rods  of  the  iron  gate,  and 


A  Friend  of  the  Dead.  21 

thought  the  old  stones  prettier  than  ever  in 
their  moonlit  glory.  She  was  rather  glad, 
however,  to  be  safe  at  home,  by  the  freshly 
kindled  fire,  when  her  grandfather  told  her 
an  old  story  of  his  boyhood  days,  of  which 
this  shining  night  had  reminded  him. 

"  Well,  little  lass,"  said  he,  "  it  was  many  a 
year  ago,  late  in  the  winter,  that  this  river 
behind  us  lay  as  still  and  white  as  it  does  to 
night.  It  no  longer  carried  any  boats  on  its 
swift  current  down  to  the  sea,  or  stopped  to 
play  in  quiet  nooks  with  the  drooping  boughs 
that  hung  over  its  edges.  Surly  old  winter, 
you  see,  had  looked  at  it,  and  just  his  glance 
had  buried  its  strength  and  its  playfulness 
under  a  coat  of  ice,  and  then  had  spread  a 
blanket  of  soft  snow  on  the  top.  So,  for  the 
time,  what  used  to  be  a  highway  to  the  ocean 
seemed  just  like  a  part  of  the  solid  earth,  or, 
rather,  one  great  long  bridge,  which  was  a 
comfort  to  those  who  lived  in  the  houses 
scattered  on  the  hillsides  along  the  river. 
Th&  farmer  and  his  wife  could  go  to  the  store, 
—  where  he  sat  smoking  and  spitting  and  talk 
ing  politics,  while  she  traded  butter  and  eggs 
for  alpaca  or  bombazine,  — without  having  to 
drive  all  the  way  round  by  the  old  wooden 
bridge. 

"  So   the   new   highway  was   covered   with 


22  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

straight  or  crooked  paths,  all  tending,  like  a 
section  of  a  big  spider's  web,  to  one  point: 
the  little  village  that  hugged  the  steep  hillside 
on  the  west  bank  of  the  river.  The  youngsters 
had  sleighing  parties  on  the  ice,  and  the  elder 
folk  of  pious  minds  rejoiced  in  a  short  and 
easy  way  of  getting  to  meeting  on  Sundays. 

"  But  that  Saturday  afternoon  in  late  Feb 
ruary  it  seemed  as  though  all  weathers  came 
together  and  flouted  each  others'  faces." 

"What  does  'flouted'  mean?"  said  Amoret, 
with  her  head  snugly  tucked  in  her  grand 
father's  elbow. 

"  Oh,  made  fun  of  each  other,"  said  he. 
"At  any  rate,  it  dripped,  and  rained,  and 
sleeted,  and  snowed ;  it  smiled  in  sunshine, 
wept  in  showers,  and  roared  in  great  gusty 
winds ;  until,  late  at  night,  there  hung  icicle- 
spears  from  the  stiff  arms  of  the  trees  that  had 
got  all  tired  out  with  their  waving  to  and  fro. 
Then  something  happened  down  on  the  frozen 
river,  unbeknownst  to  the  villagers,  whom  the 
freezing  wind  had  driven  close  to  their  kitchen 
stoves  and  sent  pretty  early  to  bed. 

"  The  night  grew  darker  and  darker,  and  the 
wind  roared  louder,  while  thicker  and  faster 
fell  the  sharp  sleet  that  cut  like  needles.  And 
just  think  of  it!  All  alone  with  the  winter 
weather,  trying  to  cross  the  river,  was  a  with- 


A  Friend  of  the  Dead,  23 

ered  and  bent  old  man.  Staggering  along,  he 
had  to  stop  every  half-dozen  steps,  to  catch 
his  breath,  and  to  hunt  for  the  path  that  grew 
harder  and  harder  to  find  and  keep.  Getting  a 
glimpse  of  a  light  in  one  of  the  houses  on  the 
hill,  he  would  stop  and  call  for  help :  a  hope 
less,  dreary  call  that  hardly  served  to  make 
any  louder  the  shriek  of  the  blast  that  took  it 
from  him.  His  hat  was  gone,  and  his  poor 
thin  gray  hair  was  whisked  about  in  the  wind ; 
and  his  torn  old  coat  flapped  round  him, 
threatening  every  minute  to  fly  off  in  the  dark 
ness.  Oh,  dear !  As  he  went  dragging  slowly 
along,  shivering  in  his  rags,  falling  again  and 
again,  his  face  bleeding  from  the  sharp  cut  of 
the  sleet,  the  old  fellow  would  have  been  a 
sorry  sight,  if  anybody  had  been  there  to 
see. 

"  But  the  old  man  had  with  him  a  friend, 
the  friend  that  had  broken  his  wife's  heart; 
the  friend  that  had  scattered  his  children 
among  strangers;  the  friend  that  had  ruined 
his  life ;  the  friend  for  whose  sake  he  had  given 
up  love,  honor,  happiness,  and  who  had  now 
driven  him,  a  homeless  wanderer,  out  into  the 
night  and  the  storm.  This  friend  he  pressed 
now  and  again  with  eager  lips,  or  hugged  closely 
with  his  stiff,  blue  fingers  and  aching  arms, 
while  the  storm  grew  wilder,  and  his  own  little 


24  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

strength  failed  more  and  more  with  each  icy 
gust." 

"Why  didn't  his  friend  help  him?"  said 
Amoret  "  I  think  it  was  real  wicked." 

"  You  '11  see,"  said  the  story-teller,  coming 
back  to  the  intelligence  of  his  hearer. 

"  At  any  rate,  as  he  stumbled  and  picked  him 
self  up  again  and  again,  alone  with  his  jug  in  the 
fearful  night,  he  kept  muttering  all  the  while. 
What  did  he  think,  little  girl,  if  he  could  think, 
and  what  did  he  say,  when  at  last,  with  a  sigh 
of  relief,  he  sank  back  to  rest  a  little?  Per 
haps,  like  Falstaff  of  old,  '  a'  babbled  of  green 
fields.' " 

"  Was  his  friend  nothing  but  a  jug  ?  "  queried 
the  wide-awake  listener.  "  And  who  was 
Falstaff?" 

"  I  '11  tell  you  sometime,"  said  he ;  "  one 
story  at  a  time. 

"  As  the  night  wore  on,  the  storm  raged  it 
self  out;  the  wind  sank  to  a  sort  of  little 
moan;  and  the  sleet  became  just  a  cold,  dull, 
straight  pouring  rain  that  froze  as  it  fell. 
After  midnight  it  stopped,  and  the  blast  carried 
all  the  clouds  away,  leaving  the  air  so  clear 
that  the  shining  stars  looked  down  as  if  all 
polished  new,  and  a  deep  breath  was  like  a 
drink  of  cold  water  fresh  from  some  woodsy 
spring. 


A  Friend  of  the  Dead.  25 

"When  morning  dawned  you  never  saw 
such  a  pretty  picture.  Of  all  the  lovely  things 
in  the  world  :  the  bright  yellow-green  mistiness 
of  budding  leaves  in  spring;  the  dark,  rich 
luxuriance  of  summer;  the  gorgeous  colors  of 
autumn;  the  pure  white  of  winter;  shining 
sunlight  on  a  quiet  sea;  or  the  awful  beauty 
of  a  mighty  storm,  none  could  be  so  unearthly 
as  the  one  that  came  that  February  Sunday 
morning.  It  was  just  as  though  you  had  been 
suddenly  transplanted  to  a  new  planet  where 
there  was  no  warmth,  no  color,  nothing  but 
clear,  cold,  glittering  purity.  Why,  hills  and 
fields  and  river  lay  smooth  and  white,  with 
millions  of  little  sparkles  of  light  on  the  icy 
crust;  while  every  tiny  twig  of  every  bush 
and  tree,  all  snug  in  its  perfect  coat  of  ice, 
looked  as  if  crusted  with  diamonds.  The 
whole  world  was  one  great  jewel  that  lay 
flashing  and  glowing  in  the  rays  of  the  morn 
ing  sun." 

"  Was  it  prettier  than  to-night?  "  said  Amoret. 

"-}  'm  afraid  it  was,"  candidly  said  her  grand 
father. 

"  I  just  don't  believe  it,"  retorted  the  incred 
ulous  agnostic. 

"  At  any  rate,"  he  went  on,  "  the  next  thing 
you  noticed  was  the  sound  of  the  church  bells, 
—  thin,  and  cold,  and  clear.  Far  away  the 


26  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

circles  of  sound  spread  in  the  rarefied  air,  till 
over  in  '  the  gully '  ["  I  know  where  that  is," 
affirmed  Amoret],  where  Sunday  was  hardly 
noted  as  it  passed,  they  sounded  their  call  and 
their  wail  ["  I  know  that,  too,"  said  she]  : 

" '  Come  to  church  —  come  to  church —  come  to  church  ; 
They  won't  come  —  they  won't  come  —  they  won't 
come.' 

"A  good  many  did  come,  however,  even 
from  a  long  distance,  over  the  glare  of  ice. 
The  horses  were  sharp-shod,  and  the  day  so 
glorious  that  everybody  felt  a  longing  to  go 
out  into  the  crisp  air.  So  half  an  hour  before 
the  time  for  service  there  was  quite  a  crowd  in 
front  of  the  meeting-house.  They  came  in  all 
sorts  of  queer  old  sleighs,  well  bundled  up,  — 
the  men's  big  mufflers  keeping  out  the  cold, 
and  the  women's  green  veils  the  intense  light. 
The  village  people,  too,  were  getting  ready 
for  meeting ;  and  the  mothers,  having  washed 
dishes  and  faces,  brushed  hair  and  hats,  and 
found  mittens  and  goloshes  for  all  the  rest  of 
the  household,  were  taking  a  quiet  minute  for 
themselves. 

"All  at  once,  a  little  quiver  of  excitement 
was  spread  through  the  village  by  the  an 
nouncement  made  by  the  many  small  boys 
who  had  their  faces  glued  to  the  window- 


A  Friend  of  the  Dead.  27 

panes,  that  an  ox-team  was  coming  up  the  hill. 
Such  a  Sabbath  sight  wasn't  common  in  that 
old-fashioned  community,  and  so  every  one 
wondered  what  it  could  mean.  And  folks 
wondered  still  more  when,  as  the  team  came 
nearer,  they  saw  the  slow  oxen  drawing  a 
woodsled  with  something  on  it  covered  by  a 
horse-blanket.  As  it  came  nearer,  the  men 
found  they  had  business  that  called  them  to 
the  front  gate ;  but  those  who  asked,  '  What 
ye  got  there?'  only  received  for  answer  from 
the  walkers  beside  the  team :  '  Ye  '11  see  at  the 
meetin'-house.' 

"  When  the  team  finally  got  there,  and  the 
men  lifted  their  queer  burden  and  placed  it  on 
the  great  horse-block,  those  who  came  behind 
could  see  a  sudden  stir  among  the  folks  already 
gathered.  They  moved  rapidly  to  and  fro, 
and  pointed,  and  asked  eager  questions  that 
no  man  could  answer.  All  that  anybody  could 
say,  was :  '  We  found  him  on  the  river,  and 
we  brought  him  to  meetin'  to  see  if  anybody 
knovved  him.' 

"  So,  when  each  new-comer  got  to  the  edge 
of  the  crowd,  he  hurried  out  a  '  What  is  it?' 
and  got  for  answer  a  silent  gesture  toward  the 
centre  of  the  group,  while  the  bystanders  fell 
back  and  opened  the  way  for  him  to  see  a 
sight  he  never  forgot.  Why,  ever  since,  the 


28  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

story  of  that  Sunday  morning  has  been  told 
and  retold,  just  as  I  have  been  telling  it  to 
you,  —  how  some  went  right  up  to  it,  while 
others  eyed  it  fearfully  from  a  distance ;  and 
how  the  old  minister,  baring  his  white  head  in 
the  chill  air,  said :  '  Dear  friends,  let  us  pray 
here,  in  this  awful  presence,  that  we  may  all 
be  saved  from  the  power  of  the  dreadful  habit 
that  has  brought  this  poor  stranger  to  so  sad 
an  end.'  One  little  chap,  whose  mother  tried 
to  prevent  his  seeing  it,  caught,  round  her 
skirt,  just  a  glimpse  with  his  great  gray  eyes, 
and  he  can  see  it  yet.  There,  before  the 
meeting-house  door,  lay  a  ragged  old  man, 
his  gray  hair  spread  round  his  head  like  a 
halo,  and  his  thin  old  arms  clasping  a  jug 
close  to  his  shrunken  body. 

"  Who  he  was,  whence  he  came,  whither  he 
was  going,  nobody  knew.  But  surely  this  for 
lorn  old  drunkard  died  as  no  other  has  ever 
been  known  to  die :  for  as  he  lay  there  on  the 
hillside,  and  preached  a  never-to-be-forgotten 
sermon,  his  wretched  body  was  hermetically 
sealed  in  a  coffin  that  glittered  clear  and  pure 
in  the  brilliant  sunlight;  a  coffin  as  transparent 
as  air,  as  cold  as  death —  a  coffin  of  ice!" 

As  the  old  man  finished  his  story  he  sat  in 
silent  thought,  and  looked  at  the  quiet  little 
flames  that  wavered  over  the  half-burned  sticks 


A  Friend  of  the  Dead.  29 

of  the  open  fire ;  for  he  had  been  one  of  the 
small  boys  who  saw  the  vitrified  body  years 
agone. 

At  length  his  thoughts  came  back  to  the 
serious  little  face  before  him,  aglow  in  the 
firelight;  and  he  wondered  whether  he  had 
been  thoughtless  in  telling  the  child  so  grue 
some  a  tale.  But  just  as  he  brought  back  his 
wandering  thoughts,  and  turned  to  Amoret 
with  a  pleasant  smile  on  his  thin  old  face,  and 
was  about  to  say,  "  Don't  grieve,  lassie  mine ; 
it  was  ever  so  long  ago,"  she  anticipated  him 
with  slowly  spoken  words :  "  Was  n't  it  lovely, 
grandpa?  for  just  as  soon  as  he  died  he  knew 
all  about  everything  !  " 


30          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 


II. 

A  BOOKSELLER'S   ROOF-TREE. 

AMORET  WENTON,  child,  had  her  home 
with  her  grandfather,  Thomas  Welby, 
bookseller.  Her  father,  who  bore  the  resonant 
name  of  Montague  Outerbridge  Wenton,  had 
been  a  genius  or  a  ne'er-do-weel,  according  to 
the  bias  of  those  who  commented  on  his  brief 
career.  The  antiquity  of  his  family  had  be 
come  a  certain  attenuation  in  himself,  so  that 
its  ancient  power  in  politics  or  in  large  land- 
schemes  fluttered  but  fitfully  in  his  year  or.  two 
of  painting,  his  briefer  study  of  the  principles 
of  symphonic  composition,  and  his  invention  of 
a  portentous  rapid-firing  cannon,  which  the 
government  was  never  wise  enough  to  adopt. 
Finally,  for  the  last  few  years  of  his  gentle  and 
blameless  life,  he  had  actually  earned  his  living 
as  a  designer  of  patterns  for  oil-cloth  carpets, 
to  which  utilitarian  product  he  brought  a 
cheery  enthusiasm  that  perhaps  was  the  pater 
nal  precursor  of  his  little  daughter's  love  for 
things  in  general. 


A  Bookseller  s  Roof-Tree.  31 

Montague  Wenton  and  Alice  Welby  had 
been  village  playmates  and  school-fellows; 
they  had  always  loved  each  other,  and  they 
had  married  because  neither  could  imagine 
any  other  possibility.  The  happiness  which 
followed  their  marriage  was  but  the  continu 
ation  of  what  had  preceded  it.  Poverty,  which 
both  had  known  before,  was  the  pleasanter 
when  shared;  and  the  first  swift  grief  the 
young  wife  ever  knew  was  her  husband's  un 
looked-for  death.  One  of  the  twin  demons  of 
the  New  England  climate  seized  him  unawares, 
burned  his  little  body  in  quick  and  immitigable 
fire,  and  then  laid  it  in  the  Wenton  family 
burying  plot,  where  it  was  soon  joined  by  that 
of  wife  Alice,  drowned  in  a  lonely  and  woeful 
riverside  ramble  by  a  mishap  that  forever  for 
bade  her  father  to  hear  the  name  of  Ophelia 
without  a  tear. 

Of  all  this  Amoret  remembered  nothing  and 
heard  little.  Her  present  was  lovely,  her 
grandfather  lovable;  that  was  enough.  In 
this  world  of  death  it  chances  not  seldom  that 
an  orphan  is  left  in  the  care  of  a  mateless  and 
childless  grandparent  —  with  ample  oppor 
tunity  for  indiscretion  and  ill  influence  on 
either  side.  But  in  this  instance  the  dangers 
seemed  minimized  from  the  start.  Poetic  babes 
trail  clouds  of  glory  as  they  come  to  earthly 


32          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

life;  other  infants  suggest  mist-banks  more 
fuliginous,  and  a  pre-natal  abode  less  benign. 
Amoret  was  simply  a  natural  little  child,  with 
the  merits  and  faults  that  must  ever  go  with 
childhood.  Like  a  little  transcendentalist, 
she  accepted  the  universe,  and  the  sun,  stars, 
rivers,  fields,  birds,  and  flowers  took  her  into 
their  honorable  company,  at  least  as  a  harmless 
and  agreeable  ephemeron. 

As  far  as  her  grandfather  was  concerned,  half 
the  griefs  and  disappointments  of  sixty-five 
years  seemed  cancelled  by  this  last  gift  of  the 
good  God. 

If  bookseller  Welby  had  been  more  eccen 
tric,  he  would  hardly  have  been  a  wise  guardian ; 
had  he  been  less  so,  he  would  have  been  com 
monplace.  Everybody  knew  he  was  unlike 
other  Bellwood  people,  and  therefore  was  to  be 
allowed  to  go  his  own  gait  Those  who  thought 
him  chary  of  speech  admitted  that  he  was 
scrupulously  just  in  his  few  words;  and  re 
grets  that  he  so  seldom  went  to  church  —  for 
the  small  congregation  of  his  own  faith  had  dis 
persed  some  years  before  —  were  not  made 
more  acrid  by  any  accusations  of  misdealings 
in  his  little  business  affairs.  Some  elderly 
church-members  of  his  own  age  called  him  a 
mere  moralist;  but  on  the  whole,  the  com 
munity  was  inclined  to  blame  him  chiefly  for 


A  Bookseller  s  Roof -Tree.  33 

not  keeping  a  larger  assortment  of  illiterate 
trifles  and  Saturday  storypapers. 

Mr.  Welby  and  his  shop  had  grown  old  and 
poor  together.  He  was  tall  and  thin,  with 
large  ears,  high  cheek-bones,  and  firm  and 
clean-shaven  face.  A  fringe  of  soft  white  hair 
stood  out  at  each  side  of  his  bald  head,  and 
a  perfectly  straight  and  slightly  thicker  growth 
fell  to  the  top  of  his  coat-collar  behind.  Heavy 
eyebrows  half  covered  the  outer  corners  of  blue 
eyes  that  sometimes  twinkled  and  sometimes 
glared,  but  more  often  were  of  a  merely  nega 
tive  character,  while  the  lower  lip  of  his  broad 
and  straight  mouth  protruded  a  little  because 
of  imperfectly-fitting  false  teeth.  Other  in- 
variables,  in  his  outward  man,  were  hexagonal 
spectacles,  usually  on  the  top  of  his  head;  a 
worn  broadcloth  coat  with  a  zigzag  cut  at  the 
lapels,  and  sleeves  that  made  up  in  length  for 
what  they  lacked  in  circumference ;  linen  that 
was  sometimes  frayed,  but  always  scrupu 
lously  white ;  and  a  stock  and  dickey  of  such 
elongated  and  inflexible  perpendicularity  as 
seemed  in  themselves  to  secure  an  unswerving 
conscience. 

All  his  life  had  been  spent  in  the  needlessly 

large  building  he  now  occupied  as  shop  and 

home.     Once  it  had  been  filled  by  a  printing 

and  publishing-house  of  local  magnitude,   in 

3 


34  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

the  days  before  book-making  became  a  met 
ropolitan  industry.  Many  painstakingly  manu 
factured  things  had  gone  forth  from  these 
old  brick  walls :  an  almanac  every  year,  divers 
moribund  newspapers,  law  reports,  some  school- 
books,  and  a  few  old  classics  in  verse  and 
fiction.  Thomas  Welby  had  been  office-boy, 
typesetter,  and  salesman  in  turn;  and  when 
the  process  of  dwindling  and  elimination  had 
left  but  the  bookstore, —  when  the  old  press 
was  abandoned  and  the  types  sold  and  the  lone 
bookbinder  had  departed,  the  middle-aged 
survivor  moved  his  household  effects  into  the 
second  story  of  the  half-deserted  warehouse 
above  the  river,  and  continued  to  sell  books, 
and  slate-pencils,  and  paper,  and  a  stray  maga 
zine  to  such  buyers  as  still  chanced  to  come  to 
what  had  once  been  dignified  as  Number  I 
New  England  row. 

This  combination  of  shop  and  home  was 
two  stories  high,  with  a  pair  of  dormer  win 
dows  in  its  steep  roofs  in  front  and  rear,  and 
huge  chimneys  set  in  the  open  southern  wall. 
The  immediate  and  inner  world  of  Amoret's 
childhood  and  of  Thomas  Welby's  age  was 
accordingly  bounded  on  the  north  by  Num 
ber  2,  on  the  west  by  the  street,  on  the  south 
by  the  slope  to  the  town  wharf,  and  on  the 
east  by  the  dilapidated  wharf  itself,  with  the 


A  Bookseller  s  Roof-Tree.  35 

lazily  treacherous  currents  of  the  sparkling 
river  just  beyond.  Kitchen,  sitting-room,  and 
bedrooms  took  but  part  of  the  rambling 
spaces  of  the  upper  stories,  while  the  high 
basement  was  big  enough  for  a  play  ground. 
Indeed,  the  whole  establishment  gave  Amoret 
the  constant  zest  of  possible  discoveries  of 
almost  any  sort,  —  pictures,  type,  ink-rolls, 
old  books  and  newspapers,  and  discarded  per 
sonalia  of  many  kinds ;  though  it  was  for  the 
most  part  neat  enough,  the  ancient  grime  of 
its  typographic  days  having  become  a  harm 
less  mahogany  tone  with  the  lapse  of  time. 
The  book  shop  itself,  of  course,  occupied  the 
front  on  the  street,  its  floor  being  a  foot  or 
two  below  the  impressive  inscription  chiselled 
into  the  stone  of  the  foundation  wall  on  the 
wharf  alley:  "  Height  of  water  April  4,  1811." 
Its  large  front  windows  were  closed  at  night 
by  thick  wooden  shutters ;  and  the  huge  key 
hole  of  the  solid  front  door,  with  its  sober 
and  much-polished  brass,  suggested  ancient 
ancT  solid  respectability.  Outside  the  door,  in 
pleasant  weather,  stood  a  little  portable  case 
of  bargains  to  attract  the  eye  of  the  passer; 
the  contents  of  the  shelves  being  graded  to 
fit  all  purses,  from  the  two-dollar  to  the  five- 
cent  capacity.  There  were  the  superannuated 
and  dog's-eared  school-book ;  the  worn  liturgy, 


36  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

with  the  former  owner's  name  still  unerased ; 
the  heavy  treatise  in  polemical  divinity,  once 
read  by  patient  and  pious  eyes,  now  covered 
with  thicker  dust  than  rests  on  its  own  brown 
leaves ;  the  forgotten  book  of  verse,  that  not 
even  duty  made  pleasurable  to  any  one  save 
its  writer;  stray  and  shabby  volumes,  that 
once  purported  to  be  Keepsakes  or  Friend 
ship's  Offerings.  Here  and  there,  however, 
was  some  piece  of  early  printing,  or  young 
sprout  of  American  literature,  which  tempted 
the  eyes  of  such  bookish  loiterers  as  occa 
sionally  visited  the  old  town,  or  of  Mr.  Wel- 
by's  few  resident  patrons.  For  the  most  part, 
however,  these  old  books  were  patiently  car 
ried  out  in  the  morning  and  back  at  night, 
with  few  depletions  of  the  shelves,  which  came 
to  seem  almost  fixed  furniture  to  their  patient 
proprietor. 

Within,  besides  volumes  of  the  same  sort, 
and  more  imposing  piles  of  the  complete 
works  of  ancient  theologians  ("the  set,  20  vols., 
sheep,  $3"),  and  divers  relics  of  the  former 
publications  of  the  firm,  there  was  a  due  array 
of  well-chosen  books  by  standard  British  and 
other  authors,  which,  if  they  were  seldom  sold, 
the  intelligent  dealer  declared  should  never  be 
lacking  if  anybody  asked  for  them.  A  book 
store,  he  averred,  was  the  intellectual  ther- 


A  Bookseller's  Roof-Tree.  37 

mometer  of  the  community,  and  its  owner  a 
missionary  of  wisdom,  a  purveyor  of  brain- 
food,  as  well  worthy  of  support  as  the  minister 
or  the  butcher,  and  as  much  bound  to  deal  in 
honest  wares.  But  he  was  used  to  leading  a 
forlorn  hope ;  the  greater  part  of  his  modest 
gains  came  from  pens  and  ink,  writing-paper 
and  wall-paper,  sealing-wax  and  notebooks, 
slates  for  little  folks,  and  legal  blanks  for  their 
parents.  Pennies  were  as  needful  as  dollars 
in  his  scanty  trade ;  and  he  made  the  tiniest 
sales  with  the  kindly  grace  and  the  scrupulous 
care,  though  hardly  with  the  inward  pleasure, 
shown  in  the  transfer  on  some  rare  and  happy 
day  of  a  sheep-bound  Federalist,  printed  within 
these  very  walls,  or  of  that  old-time  typo 
graphic  marvel  of  the  young  nation,  Barlow's 
Columbiad. 

Most  singers  do  not  write  songs,  few  actors 
invent  plays,  and  bookseller-authors  are  as 
rare  as  Samuel  Richardsons.  But  Mr.  Welby 
had  his  one  little  secret:  he  was  writing  a 
bopk.  Not  a  soul  in  the  world  knew  it,  not 
even  Amoret,  though  she  sometimes  saw  him 
go  to  the  old  many-drawered  desk  in  his  own 
room  upstairs,  take  out  a  red-backed  manu 
script  volume,  write  a  few  words  in  it,  and 
then  sit  long  in  thought  before  he  put  it 
back  into  its  place.  Forty  years  had  it  been 


38  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

a-preparing ;  for  its  author  deprecated  modern 
hurry,  and  held  the  whimsey  that  minds  ripen ; 
that  age  is  fruitage  rather  than  decay;  and 
that  men  talk  and  scribble  too  much  and 
think  too  little.  Accordingly  he  became  critic 
rather  than  creator,  and  had,  as  toward  his 
own  possible  volume,  a  mind  curiously  divided 
between  intense  pleasure  in  its  slow  compo 
sition  and  an  unwillingness  to  inflict  upon  a 
patient  world  even  one  more  pair  of  book- 
covers,  though  nobody  might  perchance  turn 
them. 

Mr.  Welby's  manuscript,  then,  was  a  mag 
num,  yet  parvum  opus,  —  a  record  oi  personalia 
and  penetralia,  as  he  said  to  himself,  when,  as 
often  happened,  he  fell  back  upon  the  scanty 
but  serviceable  stock  of  Latin  he  had  got  in 
his  boyhood  days  at  Bellwood  Academy.  On 
its  first  leaf  was  written,  in  large  letters,  — 

"THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE." 
with  this  motto  just  below:  — 
"  Hamlet,  Act  n.  Scene  2. 

Pol.  What  do  you  read,  my  lord? 
Ham.  Words,  words,  words." 

Here,  at  least,  if  no  winged  words,  were 
things  that  their  writer  had  thought  for  himself, 
not  read  in  others'  pages,  —  things  devout  and 


A  Bookseller  s  Roof-Tree.  39 

sarcastic,  monitory  or  reflective,  yet  never, 
he  hoped,  frivolous  or  untrue.  Every  man,  he 
reasoned,  knew  himself,  plus  and  minus,  best 
of  all;  and  so,  in  a  way,  he  had  a  right  to 
make  a  book,  if  but  for  his  own  eyes. 
The  foreword  was  this :  — 

I  give  you  the  world,  said  God.  Throw  it  away, 
said  Satan.  Perhaps,  said  man. 

And  among  the  entries  in  the  earlier  pages 
were  these  sentences :  — 

Humanity  rhymes  with  vanity. 

Lovest  thou  art?  Develop  thine  own  character, 
for  it  is  the  only  art-product  thou  canst  carry  hence. 

This  is  the  problem  of  the  universe :  What  is  the 
reason  of  advantage  ? 

Freedom  to  choose  the  good  is  the  greatest  gift 
the  Unknown  has  made  to  man,  —  a  gift  worth  all 
the  woe  that  is  born  of  the  choice  of  the  bad. 

It  takes  a  lifetime  to  learn  the  meaning  of  one 
word  in  the  schoolboy's  Latin  grammar  :  "  satis." 

And  so  the  life  of  the  little  household  ran 
on.  Every  morning,  soon  after  the  sun  had 
risen  above  the  tops  of  the  tall  pines  on  the 
hills  east  of  the  river,  appeared  Mr.  Welby  at 
the  front  door  of  his  shop,  wearing  the  old 
Panama  that  surmounted  his  head  winter  and 
summer,  save  when  it  was  replaced  by  an 


4O  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

ancient  silk  hat  as  he  took  his  walks  abroad. 
Down  came  the  iron  bars  that  held  in  place 
the  wooden  shutters  of  the  windows ;  off  the 
door  fell  the  similar  protections  to  its  old- 
fashioned  glass  panels ;  out  went  the  cases  of 
books  on  the  sidewalk;  and  then  was  put  into 
the  window  any  attractive  new  volume,  or  biblio 
graphic  rarity,  or  pleasing  picture,  or  standard 
magazine.  Meanwhile  breakfast  was  got  by 
old  Nancy  Lee,  who  came  in  from  her  neigh 
boring  home  to  do  the  morning  work,  —  Mr. 
Welby  and  Amoret  prepared  a  simple  supper 
for  themselves,  —  and  then  Amoret,  in  earlier 
years,  sat  down  to  study  by  herself,  or  later 
set  out  for  the  village  school  or  the  academy. 
Surrounded  by  books,  she  had  learned  to  read 
almost  intuitively,  getting  her  first  knowledge 
of  A,  B,  C  from  a  big  volume  of  type-founders' 
specimens  of  fonts.  It  was  fun  to  pick  out 
the  different  shapes,  to  connect  them  with 
names  or  sounds,  and  then  to  discover  that 
the  printed  things  could  be  put  together  in 
words,  just  as  could  the  different  noises  she 
made  when  she  spoke.  So,  at  four  years, 
Amoret  could  read  her  verses  in  her  little 
Bible,  to  and  fro  with  her  grandfather,  in  the 
morning  prayers  that  always  began  the  day. 
Then  both  knelt  for  a  collect  or  two  from  the 
red-edged  volume  that  some  Bellwood  people 


A  Bookseller's  Roof -Tree.  41 

called  heretical  and  others  a  caricature,  but 
which  probably  would  have  passed  muster 
with  Jesus  or  Paul,  and  surely  would  nowa 
days  be  called  a  rather  conservative  manual  of 
catholic  Christianity.  Mr.  Welby  was  pious 
in  his  own  way ;  he  did  not  talk  religion  out 
side,  either  for  attack  or  for  defence  ;  he 
fought  his  soul-battles  by  himself,  and  then 
tried  —  at  least  so  he  thought  —  to  be  nega 
tively  pure  and  positively  helpful.  The  founder 
of  Christianity,  in  the  bookseller's  view,  had 
established  the  world-religion  because,  more 
clearly  than  anybody  else,  he  had  perceived 
that  hypocrisy  is  the  comprehensive  vice  of 
man  and  self-sacrifice  his  ultimate  virtue. 

Amoret's  education  took  the  gentle  life  for 
granted,  other  things  coming  to  her  as  vulgar 
surprises ;  as  when,  for  instance,  she  beheld  a 
casual  dinner  guest  reach  half  across  the  table 
to  help  himself  to  a  boiled  potato  with  his 
own  fork.  So  it  was  with  the  bad  things  she 
heard  on  the  street  or  at  school ;  angry  words, 
tittle-tattle,  calling  names,  swearing,  or  the 
mention  of  things  nobody  ought  to  say.  Her 
grandfather,  and  her  best-liked  teachers,  and 
the  old  ladies  who  gave  her  figs,  fell  into  none 
of  these  things ;  they  came  to  her  ears  after  she 
had  got  used  to  better  manners;  and  so  they 
seemed  but  deviations  from  the  ought-to-be. 


42  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

Two  things  puzzled  Amoret,  however,  and 
she  soon  found,  with  no  little  sadness,  that 
they  were  going  to  bother  her  whole  life. 
One  was  the  way  in  which  she  was  sometimes 
naughty  and  knew  it  all  the  while ;  the  other 
was  the  large  number  of  folk  in  the  world  who 
were  unlike  her  grandfather,  or  the  old  retired 
minister  who  used  to  come  to  see  him,  or 
gentle  Miss  Annabella  More,  with  the  gray 
curls  on  her  temples,  and  the  Brazil-nuts  in 
her  pocket,  and  the  mitts  on  her  hands,  and 
ever  so  many  pretty  poems  in  her  memory. 
If  everybody  were  good  and  happy  and  never 
hurt  or  shocked  one,  what  an  improvement  it 
would  be !  Once,  when  Amoret  was  a  tiny 
child,  and  her  grandfather  was  carrying  her  up 
stairs  to  bed,  the  flickering  candle  threw  a 
black  image  on  the  wall,  and  the  little  girl  ex 
claimed,  "  Shadow,"  —  the  first  word  she  ever 
spoke;  and  so  she  found  that  light  always 
makes  darkness  in  this  world  of  ours. 

On  the  whole,  however,  she  was  happy,  very 
happy,  but  chiefly  on  account  of  her  loneli 
ness  ;  it  is  easier  to  manage  a  private  paradise 
than  a  public  one.  Yet  Amoret  was  not  selfish, 
she  was  sorry  for  things  long  before  she  learned 
to  construe  sunt  lacrimce  rerum. 

As  years  went  on  and  Amoret  looked  back 
on  childhood,  she  was  never  foolish  enough  to 


A  Bookseller  s  Roof-Tree.  43 

call  it  the  time  of  happiest  days.  No  woe  of 
manhood  or  womanhood,  she  declared,  is 
worse  than  the  boy's  or  girl's  sense  of  immiti 
gable  misunderstanding  by  others ;  and  Amo- 
ret,  when  she  was  a  little  girl,  was  sometimes 
misunderstood. 


44          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 


III. 

THE  JOY   OF   LIFE. 

ONE  summer  afternoon,  a  dozen  years  be 
yond  the  days  of  her  playtimes  in  the 
old  graveyard,  Amoret  sat  on  Hunger  Hill. 
She  was  still,  as  of  yore,  the  friend  of  the  dead ; 
she  could  not  believe  that,  in  a  universe  whose 
every  atom  tingles  with  force,  the  soul  — 
noblest  result  of  all  —  could  in  any  true  sense 
die.  But  she  loved  the  dead  because  she  loved 
life  and  living  ;  because  Nature's  supernal 
beauty  and  unending  opportunity  seem  to  bind 
here  and  there  together,  and  to  make  a  single 
tense  of  was,  is,  and  shall  be. 

That  day  the  soft  June  sun  fell  on  the  long 
slope  of  the  hill;  bees  hummed  and  butterflies 
flickered  in  a  gentle  air  that  disturbed  not  the 
freedom  of  their  wayward  motions;  and  the 
grass  had  a  good  time  in  its  growing.  A  half 
mile  away  the  cool  river  swept  along  in  a 
leisurely  curve,  while  far  to  the  west  the  White 
Mountain  peaks  rose  skyward  in  aspiration, 
the  while  their  lower  slopes  covered  the  land 


The  Joy  of  Life.  45 

in  benediction.  In  its  early  summer  loveliness 
the  world  was  more  smiling  than  solemn,  and 
its  present  beauty  and  mere  enjoyableness  left 
little  room  for  thought;  to  be  was  enough. 
Even  the  New  England  conscience  is  some 
times  lulled  or  lured  away  from  its  dreary 
habit  of  introspection,  and  is  content  to  exist, 
like  Nature.  The  brightness  of  the  afternoon 
light,  the  flicker  of  the  distant  water,  the  good 
smell  of  pine  trees,  warmed  by  the  steady  sun 
and  the  mild  air,  promoted  a  sense  that  com 
bined  delicious  laziness  and  poetic  alertness. 
As  for  Amoret,  her  philosophy  had  always 
been  optimistic  enough ;  and  to-day,  for  the 
very  frolic  of  life,  she  sat  singing  to  herself  a 
little  making  of  her  own :  — 

Time  and  space  began  a  race,  all  on  a  dateless  day ; 
Run  they  yet,  the  goal  is  set,  but  ever  moves  away. 

While  Beauty  sat  thus  on  the  hillside,  amid 
all  things  sweet,  up  came  Youth  with  a  cheery 
"  Good-afternoon,  and  good  luck  to  my  good 
old  ..friend !  " 

Beauty,  in  sufficiently  truthful  word,  was 
Amoret,  and  Youth  was  Robert  Rodney,  New 
York  artist,  the  roistering  and  selfish  boy  Bob 
of  the  times  of  play-tea  on  the  churchyard  slabs. 
Years  had  gone  since  Amoret  last  saw  him,  for 
they  had  parted  as  school-children  when  Rod- 


46  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

ney  went  away  to  study  art  in  nobody  knew 
what  European  galleries.  Yet  here  again, 
unmistakable  and  instantly  to  be  recognized, 
were  the  cheery  face,  the  curly  mass  of  light 
hair,  the  well-knit  sturdiness  of  active  figure, 
and  the  ringing  voice  of  yore.  Amoret  jumped 
up,  tumbled  some  flowers  and  leaves  out  of 
her  lap,  and  ran  toward  him  in  quick  happi 
ness,  with  no  more  original  or  rhetorical  wel 
come  than  "  Why,  Robert  Rodney,  where  did 
you  come  from?  " 

"  Everywhere  and  nowhere,"  said  Robert,  as 
he  pulled  his  cap  from  his  bright  head,  and 
returned  Amoret's  warm  handshake  with  a 
new  desire  to  make  the  hearty  ceremony  as 
long  as  possible,  and  a  sudden  thought  that 
he  never  would  have  dreamed  that  the  tomb 
stone  chit  would  grow  into  a  being  so  pictur 
esque.  "  Everywhere,  for  F  ve  trotted  over 
half  Europe  since  I  saw  you,  and  nowhere, 
because  I  'm  turned  out  of  one  studio  and  am 
going  to  move  into  a  bigger  one ;  "  and  mean 
while  he  continued  his  inventory  of  the  details 
of  the  figure  before  him,  as  though  she  had 
been  a  model.  But  Amoret  —  though  she  in 
stinctively  saw  that  Bob  was  as  handsome  as 
ever,  had  lost  his  freckles,  had  gained  polite 
ness  without  losing  frankness,  and  that  his  un 
questionably  pretty  hair  had  concluded  not  to 


The  Joy  of  Life.  47 

be  red  —  was  so  sincerely  and  spontaneously 
glad  to  see  him  that  she  really  gave  her  whole 
welcome  to  the  individual  and  not  to  his  acci 
dents.  It  was  too  good  to  be  true;  here, 
already,  had  been  this  lovely  day  and  her 
happy  dreams,  and  now  came  an  old  play 
mate,  with  nobody  knew  how  many  bright 
stories  to  tell  of  the  world  that  never  gave 
Bellwood  a  single  thought. 

"  Dear  me,"  said  she,  "  so  I  'm  a  good  old 
friend ;  you  should  n't  twit  on  the  facts  of 
age." 

"  I  know  how  old  you  are,"  said  he,  "  nine 
teen  this  spring;  that's  the  good  of  coming 
home  again.  In  Paris,  nobody  knows  anything 
about  age,  anyway;  and  in  New  York  every 
woman  subtracts  x,  the  unknown  and  incon 
stant  quantity,  from  the  family  Bible  record." 

"Do  they  have  Bibles  in  New  York?" 
queried  Amoret.  "  Well,  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States,  '  setat.  23,'  as  our  old  tomb 
stones  used  to  say,  ought  to  know  better 
than  to  laugh  at  woman's  foibles ;  "  and  she 
sat  down  on  a  little  knoll  of  dry  moss,  while 
Robert  took  for  his  seat  a  neighboring  rock. 
"  Men  are  every  bit  as  sensitive  about  their 
age  as  women  are,  and  as  vain,  too." 

"  Oh,  but  you  ought  to  see  some  of  those 
careless  artists  and  poets  on  the  other  side; 


48  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

sixteen  and  sixty  are  all  one  to  them,  and  a 
dress  coat  or  a  flannel  shirt." 

"  As  artless,  I  suppose,  as  the  Oregon  bard 
who  wore  cowhide  boots  in  London  parlors,  and 
insisted  on  sleeping  in  a  buffalo-robe ;  there 's 
nobody  so  artificial  as  the  man  who  is  always 
declaiming  against  the  conventional.  It 's  easy 
enough  to  do  as  other  people  do  ;  it  takes  a 
great  deal  of  trouble  to  be  natural,"  said 
Amoret,  giving  a  hasty  and  slightly  peniten 
tial  glance  at  Robert  to  see  whether  she  was 
unintentionally  criticising  him,  too  ;  but  reas 
suring  herself  by  his  generally  familiar  dress, 
though  his  waiscoat  and  necktie  were  hardly 
of  the  prevalent  Bellwood  order. 

"  That 's  so,"  said  he  ;  "  but  your  really  great 
reformer,  your  giant  socialist,  your  true  revo 
lutionary  leader,  despises  all  fashions  as  mere 
cant." 

"  Of  course  he  does,"  said  Amoret.  "  Did 
you  ever  notice  that  a  revolutionist  is  a  man 
who  can't  control  himself  ?  " 

"I'm  a  revolutionist,  then,  for  the  thought 
of  coming  back  to  Bellwood  for  a  few  days, 
while  the  carpenters  were  disporting  them 
selves  in  the  university  building,  popped  into 
my  head,  and  I  couldn't  control  the  impulse 
to  do  so,  right  away." 

"  I  'm  glad  you  did,  for  you  can  tell  us  rus- 


The  Joy  of  Life.  49 

tics  about  everything ;  we  don't  know  whether 
Notre  Dame  has  towers  or  a  dome,  or  whether 
Milo  was  a  sculptor  or  a  town." 

"  Oh,  never  mind  about  Europe;  I  want  to 
talk  about  Bellwood  folks,  and  you,  especially 
the  latter,"  said  Robert,  noticing  once  more 
how  pretty  Amoret  really  was.  "  That  was 
what  brought  me  out  of  New  York,  and "  — 
with  an  additional  happy  thought — "  up  this 
hill."  He  had  never  got  over  his  boyish  habit 
of  believing  his  own  improvisations.  In  fact, 
Amoret  had  not  come  to  his  mind  for  five 
years ;  but  since,  in  those  years,  he  had  been 
artistically  interested  in  the  Ideal  Vision,  and 
here  was  an  unquestionable  incarnation  of 
certain  elements  thereof,  he  was  reasonably 
satisfied  of  the  inherent  truth  of  his  supple 
mentary  remark  :  "  I  Ve  never  forgotten,  you 
see,  that  there's  only  one  Bellwood  in  the 
world,  and  only  one  you !  "  and  he  threw  off 
his  cap  in  graceful  enthusiasm,  and  looked 
Amoret  straight  in  the  eye  with  the  spon 
taneous  honesty  of  youth. 

"  That's  good,"  said  Amoret,  with  real  pleas 
ure  ;  "  at  least,  half  of  it  is.  But  all  this  does  n't 
seem  natural.  We  have  n't  quarrelled  more 
than  a  quarter  of  our  old  stint ;  "  and  she 
bent  and  plucked  a  single  daisy  with  a  very 
long  stem,  the  while  a  song-sparrow  sang 
4 


50  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

like  a  canary-bird  on  a  neighboring  bush, 
and  Rodney  noticed  the  pretty  springing  of 
Amoret's  wrist. 

Most  women,  and  more  men,  are  homely; 
yet  here  on  a  summer  hillside  were  a  very 
presentable  Apollo  and  Diana  of  Yankee 
birth,  either  of  whom  was  sufficiently  pleasant 
to  the  eye.  Robert  Rodney  united  negative 
and  positive  physical  merits  in  an  attractive 
way;  he  was  neither  heavy  nor  thin;  not  too 
tall  or  too  short;  and  combined  a  pleasant 
roundness  of  outline  with  an  activity  and 
bright  spontaneity  of  manner  that  seemed  to 
make  him  a  perennial  boy,  and  certainly 
made  him  a  universal  favorite,  save  with  the 
few  who  instinctively  disliked  him  at  the 
start  for  his  buoyant  conspicuousness.  His 
hands  and  feet  were  smaller  than  one  usually 
sees  in  a  man  of  such  physical  strength ;  his 
rather  large  head  was  covered  by  a  poetic 
mass  of  fine,  sunny  brown  hair,  which  had 
been  his  distinction  and  his  annoyance  from 
boyhood;  his  skin  was  of  delicate  texture,  but 
well  browned  by  constant  out-door  exercise; 
his  eyes,  chameleon  fashion,  veered  between 
green  and  gray;  his  teeth  were  perfect  without 
being  prominent;  and  sometimes  his  smile 
was  the  pleasantest  thing  one  could  ask  to 
see.  Too  happy  to  be  really  selfish,  he  ac- 


The  Joy  of  Life.  51 

cepted  good  and  bright  things  as  his  kin  by 
right,  and  simply  avoided,  as  far  as  he  might, 
people  and  objects  that  seemed  to  him  vul 
gar,  or  troublesome,  or  uninteresting.  Some 
drops  of  Greek  blood  had  evidently  wandered 
through  the  veins  of  Saxon  ancestors  until 
they  vitalized  the  pulse  of  this  agreeable 
son  of  the  north-temperate  zone  in  the  new 
world. 

With  fair  artistic  ability,  and  just  money 
enough  to  get  a  decent  art  education  at  home 
and  abroad,  he  had  finally  set  up  his  easel  in 
the  American  metropolis.  By  no  means  a 
genius,  and  clearly  lacking  both  the  tact  of 
the  schemer  and  the  patience  of  the  artist 
who  works  for  long  results,  his  quick  eye  and 
ready  hand,  and,  most  of  all,  his  unfailing 
good  luck,  enabled  him  to  avoid  the  weary 
days  of  waiting  that  confronted  most  begin 
ners  in  the  Twenty-third  or  West-tenth 
streets  of  his  time.  Like  some  of  his  latter- 
day  successors  in  the  Fifty-seventh  street 
home  of  impressions,  Rodney  sometimes 
painted  unintelligible  landscapes  in  impossi 
ble  yellow,  or  inscrutable  damsels  in  washed- 
out  green ;  but  he  was  almost  vexed  with 
himself  that,  willy-nilly,  he  turned  off  so 
many  swiftly  painted  story  pictures,  which 
the  philistine  public  insisted  on  buying  at 


52  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

prices  that  gave  him  a  very  comfortable  liv 
ing.  How  could  he  help  it?  things  would 
suggest  themselves  in  Bleecker  street  and 
Washington  square,  up  in  Sleepy  Hollow  or 
down  at  Perth  Amboy;  and,  after  all,  was  it 
wicked  to  paint  fruit-stands  and  baby-carts 
and  old  shoemakers?  Let  them  keep  out  of 
the  way,  then ;  at  least  they  were  not  so  tire 
some  as  Joan  of  Arc  or  Saint  Mark's. 

Certainly  an  artistic  eye  could  have  had 
no  difficulty  in  finding  a  pleasing  subject  in 
Amoret.  Rodney's  not  altogether  vivid  rec 
ollections  of  her,  stimulated  by  the  present 
agreeable  apparition,  reproduced  a  somewhat 
plain  and  silent  little  girl  (save  as  she  talked 
to  herself  in  her  lonely  play),  with  serious 
eyes,  a  low  forehead,  brownish  black  hair,  and 
scarcely  any  beauty,  save  her  graceful  and 
spontaneous  little  motions  of  hand  or  head  or 
supple,  small  body.  From  that  estate  Bell- 
wood  had  seen  her  grow  into  her  present  sweet 
girlhood,  with  its  curious  combination  of 
childish  simplicity  and  womanly  self-reliance. 
Left  largely  to  herself,  with  neither  father  nor 
mother,  brother  nor  sister,  she  was  a  child 
of  the  soil,  of  whom  God  seemed  to  have 
dropped  the  personal  responsibility,  leaving 
her  to  grow  as  she  would,  for  his  own  enjoy 
ment  and  that  of  her  small  world,  like  a  lily 


The  Joy  of  Life.  53 

in  a  mere.  But  her  cares  for  her  grandfather 
and  the  bookshop,  and  later,  her  modest  money- 
making  ventures  of  her  own,  had  given  her, 
with  all  her  innocence,  a  sort  of  maturity  that 
is  never  gained  by  some  people  who  are  al 
ways  protected  or  always  thrust  aside.  Bell- 
wood,  on  the  whole,  hardly  appreciated  her  or 
knew  her,  any  more  than  it  appreciated  its 
sunsets,  or  mayflowers,  or  midnight  stars;  but 
now  and  then  somebody  said,  "  Amoret  Wen- 
ton's  getting  to  be  quite  a  pretty  girl;"  and, 
at  any  rate,  nobody  disliked  her. 

Of  all  this  Rodney  was  yet  to  learn  in  his 
homeward  visit.  Meanwhile,  what  did  he  see  ? 

A  girl  of  rather  slight  figure,  and  of  an 
average  height.  Her  little  artistic  heap  of 
dark  hair,  almost  black  when  not  in  the  sun 
light,  covered  her  well-shaped  head  like  a 
fairy's  cap,  and  never  seemed  to  need  any 
attention,  being  neither  smooth  nor  curly, 
parted  nor  put  back,  but  only  a  bit  of  Amoret. 
The  forehead  was  low,  the  eyebrows  slightly 
arched,  the  eyes  brown  and  rather  far  apart, 
the  mouth  small,  like  a  solemn  little  rosebud 
of  half-melancholy  curl,  the  ear-tips  just  visi 
ble  beneath  the  airy  hair-shock  at  the  side, 
the  nose  decidedly  unimportant  when  meas- 
red  by  the  rest  of  the  face,  and  slightly  "tip- 
tilted  "  at  that.  What  right  had  such  a  dark 


54  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

vision  of  a  wood  —  thought  Rodney,  as  he 
instinctively,  professionally,  and  unsatisfac 
torily  ran  through  the  inventory  just  given  — 
to  a  nose  that  a  critic  might  call  inharmoni 
ous?  Just  how  to  reconstruct  it,  in  the 
painting  already  half  planned,  he  did  not  see; 
and  therefore  he  turned  with  more  satisfaction 
to  the  pathetic  little  hands,  the  pretty  arms, 
and  the  sweet  symmetry  of  the  sinuous  body, 
at  the  same  time  felicitating  himself,  on  gen 
eral  principles,  that  rosy  plumpness  in  art  was 
entirely  out  of  fashion. 

The  little  pause  for  happy  thinking  that 
often  comes  at  the  very  beginning  of  a  pleas 
ant  meeting  was  broken  by  Amoret,  to  whom 
Robert's  apparition  was  merely  one  new 
agreeable  in  a  bright  afternoon.  "  Is  n't 
Bellwood  lovel)' ! "  she  exclaimed  with  the 
enthusiasm  of  a  native  who  really  revelled  in 
its  granite  hillsides  and  shady  ways,  and  yet 
knew  that  sometimes  it  needed  an  affectionate 
defence  against  heedless  visitors,  who  declared 
its  houses  ugly,  its  streets  ragged,  its  door- 
yards  unkempt,  and  its  people  unresponsive. 

"It's  God's  smile  to-day,"  said  Rodney, 
truthfully  enough.  He  had  been  wandering 
through  the  old  familiar  town  with  mixed 
impressions  of  pleasure  and  disappointment; 
one  looks  at  his  birthplace,  after  years  of 


The  Joy  of  Life.  55 

absence,  as  a  soul  looks  at  its  dead  body. 
Reaching  the  village  by  the  midnight  train, 
it  had  pleased  his  fancy  to  walk  through  the 
slumbering  region  for  an  hour  or  two,  touch 
ing  the  trees  behind  which  he  had  many  a 
time  played  tag;  looking  at  the  plain  old 
sleep-stilled  houses,  whose  every  chimney  he 
knew  so  well;  and  finally,  walking  round  his 
birthhome  and  viewing  it  from  every  point, 
like  an  undisturbed  nocturnal  burglar  of  mem 
ories.  He  could  hardly  believe  how  cramped 
that  native  house  really  was,  as  far  as  its 
immediate  surroundings  were  concerned;  but 
it  had  been  big  enough  for  all  his  boyish 
dreams,  now  well  toward  fulfillment.  "  Ghost 
like  I  paced  round  the  haunts  of  my  child 
hood  ; "  all  seemed  his,  and  yet  not  his ;  the 
realest  things  in  the  world,  and  yet  the  phan 
tasm  of  a  dream.  The  bright  stars  glittered 
through  the  tops  of  the  sturdy  horse-chestnut 
he  had  set  out  as  a  boy,  when  its  sticky  top- 
bud  was  not  so  high  as  his  own  head;  the 
windows  of  the  house  looked  like  soulless 
eyes;  while  up  on  the  stable  still  stood  the 
flagpole  he  had  put  there  at  the  imminent 
risk  of  his  neck;  he  remembered  that  he  split 
the  bottom  of  the  staff  with  a  big  nail  that 
had  nevertheless  held  the  wood  in  place  for 
all  these  years.  No  little  home-made  flag  flew 


56  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

there  now,  — and  when  Rodney  went  belatedly 
to  bed,  his  sunny  mind  was  as  near  the  mood 
of  pathos  as  it  ever  came. 

Next  morning  most  of  those  he  saw  on  the 
streets  did  not  remember  him,  nor  he  them; 
and  on  the  whole  the  greetings  of  some  few 
old  acquaintances  bored  him;  school  play 
mates  had  become  commonplace,  old  folks 
remained  tiresome,  and  the  inquiries  he  had 
to  answer  were  clumsy  or  irrelevant.  As  for 
asking  questions  himself,  he  did  not  care  to, 
—  save  to  find  out  that  the  present  occupant 
of  his  old  home  was  a  new  doctor,  named 
Ercott,  or  some  such  thing;  and  it  was  in 
self-defence  that  he  had  climbed  the  hill  this 
afternoon.  "How  much  more  attractive  the 
world  would  be  if  you  did  n't  have  to  meet 
people !  "  thought  this  promising  and  success 
ful  painter  of  old  women  knitting  on  the 
doorstep,  and  sweet  little  girls  with  handfuls 
of  forget-me-nots,  and  good  old  gnarly  coun 
try  deacons  standing  to  pray  in  Wednesday 
evening  meeting.  Why,  even  his  canvas 
illustrating  the  Kitten  and  the  Falling  Leaves 
had  led  a  careful  critic  to  say  that  here  was 
"a  young  American  painter  who  is,  above  all 
things,  a  lover  and  sharer  of  all  that  is  whole 
some  in  the  world  of  simple  humanity  and 
heartfelt  happiness;  and  who  promises,  what 


The  Joy  of  Life.  57 

with  his  sympathetic  insight  and  his  enthusi 
astic  brush,  to  become  no  mean  chronicler  of 
the  folk-life  of  his  time." 

But  never  mind  his  midnight  or  starlight 
musings,  or  his  morning  disenchantments; 
here,  at  any  rate,  was  Amoret.  Amoret  — 
what  a  pretty  name !  How  came  it  to  reappear 
for  this  wildwood  creature  ?  thought  Rodney. 
Did  it  just  happen,  or  had  her  mother  read 
about  that  "goodly  mayd  ....  the  which 
was  all  in  lilly  white  arayd;"  Rodney  was 
surprised  to  find  some  such  quotation  floating 
in  his  own  mind. 

If  there  was  one  thing  in  the  world  really 
disliked  by  this  painter  of  commonplace  affec 
tion  and  homely  characteristics,  it  was  the 
ordinary;  if  he  reverenced  anything  save  him 
self  and  whatever  made  him  aesthetically  com 
fortable,  it  was  the  peculiar.  That  Amoret 
was  a  novelty  he  was  satisfied  in  view  of  all 
his  sage  sight-seeings  in  a  wider  world;  and 
a  new  sensation  flashed  upon  him,  though  he 
did  not  care  to  take  the  trouble  to  define  it. 
As  far  as  Amoret's  own  feelings  went,  this 
was  a  day  when  analysis  of  existence  seemed 
really  despicable.  So,  when  Robert  said  that 
Bellwood  was  God's  smile,  her  June  joy  was 
full ;  not  for  many  a  day  had  two  words  fitted 
so  well  into  her  heart's  mood;  and  when  their 


58  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

eyes  met,  there  was  nothing  but  spontaneous 
happiness  in  their  world. 

"Now  tell  me  all  about  yourself,"  said 
Robert,  with  the  affableness  of  former  child 
ish  familiarity,  and  with  an  interest  whose 
present  genuineness  was  unquestionable;  the 
last  ten  minutes  had  certainly  made  their 
mark  upon  an  externally  impressionable 
mind. 

"Oh!  I'd  rather  hear  about  you,"  said 
Amoret  simply;  "I  have  lived  here  in  Bell- 
wood  all  my  life,  and  my  little  doings  are  not 
worth  talking  about. " 

"But  some  people  make  their  own  world," 
replied  Rodney,  and  checked  himself  before 
saying  more,  as  there  came  to  his  mind  a 
quick  apprehension  that  subtle  and  indirect 
compliment  would  affect  the  beautiful  girl 
before  him,  but  that  mere  flattery  would  be 
worse  than  useless. 

"One  has  to,  here,"  said  she,  "else  we 
would  n't  have  a  very  great  world.  I  've 
helped  grandfather  in  his  shop,  and  I  've 
taught  music  up  and  down  this  valley;  and 
once  I  made  a  long  visit  to  a  dear  old  second 
cousin,  who  spends  her  summers  on  the  sea 
side  rocks." 

"Yes,"  said  Rodney,  with  something  like 
a  woman's  intuition  of  the  heart  of  the  mat- 


The  Joy  of  Life.  59 

ter;  "but  what  do  you  really  care  for,  what  is 
the  thing  that  makes  life  worth  most  when 
you've  shut  out  everybody  but  yourself?  It 
seems  to  me  that  we  only  half  live,  the  greater 
part  of  the  time,  and  that  it 's  useless  to  ask 
what  we  've  done;  what  we  've  been  is  the  real 
thing."  And  Amoret  thought  that  she  had 
not  heard  in  five  years  from  anybody,  save  her 
grandfather,  a  remark  so  well  worth  making. 

"Well,"  said  she,  "  it 's  good  to  work,  it 's 
better  to  help,  and  it 's  best  to  grow,  I  sup 
pose;"  and  she  thought  of  the  few  and  poor 
little  poems  in  her  old  desk  at  home,  in  which 
she  had  tried  to  put  some  of  her  thoughts,  and 
which,  aside  from  her  grandfather  and  half  a 
dozen  pet  books,  were  the  only  things  in  the 
world  she  would  hate  to  leave  if  she  were  to 
die.  And  she  amused  herself  by  a  little 
inward  giggle  at  the  absurdity  of  the  remark, 
were  she  to  make  it  in  reply  to  Robert : 
"Poetry  makes  life  worth  living;  that  is,  my 
poetry  first  and  other  folks'  afterward."  In 
stead,  she  said :  "  Oh,  it 's  enough  to  exist,  and 
to  let  Beethoven  and  Wagner  sing  your  creed 
for  you." 

"Beethoven  was  a  pantheist,"  said  Rodney; 
"and  that 's  what  such  a  day  as  this  makes  of 
us  all ;  one  thing  is  as  beautiful  and  as  good 
and  as  important  as  another." 


60  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

"  Do  you  really  think  he  was  a  pantheist  ?  " 
said  Amoret,  to  whom  the  old  theological 
nomenclature  of  New  England  still  had  some 
objurgatory  power,  though  she  was  liberal 
enough  in  her  own  thoughts.  "  I  think  he 
tried  to  say  in  that  movement  in  the  Ninth 
Symphony  —  don't  you  remember?  \headagio 
that  is  such  an  illustration  of  the  pathos  of 
the  major  key,  where  it  begins  so  softly  with 
the  funny  little  eighth  note  off  the  beat  —  just 
what  the  apostle  said  in  his  '  God  is  love. '  ' 

"That's  what  I  mean,"  said  he;  "mix 
together  the  sunshine,  and  the  bees,  and  the 
flowers,  and  the  birds,  and  the  butterflies,  and 
the  west  wind,  and  this  pine  smell,  and  these 
old  granite  rocks,  and  yesterday,  and  to 
morrow,  and  you,  and  me,  and  I  should  think 
the  maker  of  the  universe  would  feel  very  well 
satisfied  with  things." 

Amoret  laughed  in  spite  of  herself,  in  the 
very  gayety  of  contradiction,  and  added :  "  But 
I  suppose  we  are  in  duty  bound  to  think  of  all 
the  poor  sufferers  in  the  world,  and  the  wicked 
yesterdays  and  the  dreary  to-morrows ;  besides, 
how  do  you  know  that  the  Over-Soul  is  as  well 
satisfied  with  you  as  you  are  yourself  ?  " 

"I  said  you  and  me,"  said  Rodney;  "so 
the  average  of  the  two  would  be  very  high." 

"Worse   yet,"    exclaimed   Amoret,   as   she 


The  Joy  of  Life.  61 

clapped  her  hands  and  rose  from  her  seat. 
"But  I  must  go." 

"May  I  go  too?"  said  he;  "you  know  that 
used  to  be  one  of  our  most  frequent  beggings 
when  we  were  children. " 

"Yes,  indeed,"  said  Amoret;  "if  you  can 
go  where  I  am  going,  — down  to  grandfather's 
to  get  ready  for  giving  a  music-lesson.  The 
more  we  are  together  to-day  the  better  I  like 
it,"  said  she,  simply. 

"What  nonsense  it  is,"  said  Rodney,  "to 
call  childhood  days  the  happiest ;  I  never  was 
half  so  happy  as  I  am  now." 

"Nor  half  so  good  company,"  thought 
Amoret ;  and  the  thought  slipped  to  her  lips 
before  she  knew  it. 

"Thank  you,"  said  he,  sincerely;  "I  used 
to  be  a  hateful  little  prig." 

"Oh,  no,  said  Amoret;  "I  was  the  prig 
and  you  were  —  let  me  see,  you  were  —  " 

"The  blunderbuss  of  the  juvenile  tragedy," 
laughed  Rodney;  and  Amoret  did  not  deny 
it  in  her  pretty  smile,  adding,  "Never  mind 
the  "past,  the  present  is  enough  for  me;  don't 
you  remember 

"  '  What  thy  life  last  put  heart  and  soul  into, 
There  shall  I  taste  thy  product.'  " 

"Don't  I  remember  —  though  I  don't  recall 
your  quotation  for  the  very  good  reason  that 


62  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

I  never  heard  it  —  when  first  that  idea  popped 
into  my  head !  I  had  climbed  up  into  the  old 
steeple,  above  the  clock  and  beside  the  big 
bell,  and  I  was  looking  down  on  the  little 
folks  on  the  street,  and  did  n't  dare  lean  very 
far  over  the  rail.  It  was  then  that  I  thought : 
'  It 's  now,  now,  all  the  while,  for  them  and 
for  me,  and  it 's  always  now  for  God  up  in  the 
clouds  and  for  us  crawling  around  on  the  earth. 
And  this  instant  is  the  sum  and  show  of  all 
one  has  ever  been. ' ' 

Rodney  had  not  read  many  books,  but  he 
had  often  enjoyed  the  benefit  of  his  own  ideas, 
such  as  they  were;  and  although  his  swift 
notions  were  as  a  rule  neither  influential  nor 
consistently  progressive,  they  sounded  well 
enough  when  spoken  by  his  red  lips  and  happy 
voice.  Amoret,  at  least,  who  knew  half  her 
own  bookshelf  by  heart,  thought  his  extem- 
porizings  better  than  her  quotations,  not  real 
izing  how  little  she  herself  was  limited  to 
other  people  for  her  thoughts. 

And  so  they  walked  down  to  the  bookstore 
in  the  radiant  Now. 


Here  and  There.  63 


IV. 

HERE  AND   THERE. 

MR.  WELBY  was  standing  in  his  door  as 
Amoret  and  Robert  walked  down  the 
hill  to  his  corner,  his  thin  figure  clad  in  its 
usual  rusty  coat,  and  surmounted  by  the 
inevitable  straw  hat.  A  little  girl  had  just 
bought  an  arithmetic  and  a  slate,  and  had  been 
turning  with  envious  fingers  the  leaves  of  a 
podgy  little  copy  of  "Evenings  at  Home," 
staring  at  the  venerable  woodcuts  of  the 
young  mouse,  the  thieving  kite  in  his  swoop 
upon  the  chicken-yard,  and  the  ancient  man 
who  sat  upon  a  rock  as  the  pictorial  introduc 
tion  to  "The  Transmigrations  of  Indur." 
The  good  old  bibliopole,  pleased  that  in  these 
degenerate  days  a  child  should  care  to  look 
at  one  of  the  wholesome  juveniles  of  a  bygone 
generation,  had  told  her  he  would  give  her  the 
book  if  she  would  tell  him  what  "transmigra 
tions  "  meant,  and  would  promise  to  read  the 
story  of  "  Eyes  and  No  Eyes. "  The  promise 
came  bashfully,  but  quickly;  the  definition 
—  was  not  the  little  lass  a  New  Englander?  — 


64  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

was  given  in  some  rough  but  decently  adequate 
fashion;  and  the  book  was  duly  transferred, 
done  up  in  a  brown-paper  parcel  tied  with  a 
red  string,  as  though  it  had  been  a  real  pur 
chase.  Thereby  Mr.  Welby  gave  away  the 
profits  got  by  the  sale  of  the  arithmetic  and 
the  slate,  but  he  gained  the  sense  of  satisfac 
tion  which  approves  the  true-minded  book- 
vendor  as  a  local  missionary  of  wisdom. 

Turning  to  the  door  of  the  shop,  after  this 
little  transaction  in  didactics,  he  was  enjoying 
the  cool  breeze  just  beginning  to  blow  from 
the  west,  and  was  half-fashioning  in  his  mind 
some  phrase  for  his  book,  on  the  evanescence 
of  the  permanent  and  the  perpetuity  of  the 
transient.  Once  —  the  might  of  a  single  look! 
—  what  more  fleeting  than  ancient  civilizations 
and  marble  monuments  ?  what  more  enduring 
than  the  little  breath  of  the  breeze  that  has 
fainted  or  flickered  for  a  million  years?  And 
what  is  an  idea  but  an  inspiration ;  what  an 
inspiration  but  a  breath?  The  wind,  the 
spirit,  the  soul,  the  ghost :  that  it  is  which  we 
brought  with  us  and  shall  carry  with  us.  So 
when  his  next  jotting  was  written  in  the  slowly 
growing  volume  in  the  desk  it  took  this  form : 

The  saddest  thing  about  death,  next  to  leaving  a 
friend  or  two,  is  parting  with  one's  books ;  but  we 
can  take  with  us  the  souls  of  both. 


Here  and  There.  65 

Then  it  was  that  Amoret  and  Robert,  with 
quick  step  and  laughing  faces,  came  in  sight. 
They  were  so  happy  in  themselves,  and  Mr. 
Welby  was  so  lonely,  that  the  old  man's  eyes 
discerned  the  two  before  they  saw  him  at  all. 
And  in  that  discernment  came  a  flash  to  the 
brain,  whose  workings  seemed  all  the  quicker 
for  advancing  years,  the  inevitable  duality 
behind  so  much  of  our  philosophy:  he  and 
she.  The  ancient  parallelism  reverberated  in 
his  mind:  — 

"  There  be  three  things  which  are  too  wonderful  for  me, 
Yea,  four  which  I  know  not : 
The  way  of  an  eagle  in  the  air  ; 
The  way  of  a  serpent  upon  a  rock ; 
The  way  of  a  ship  in  the  midst  of  a  sea, 
And  the  way  of  a  man  with  a  maid." 

By  this  time  Amoret  and  Robert  were  half 
way  across  the  street,  so  the  thinker  was 
obliged  to  postpone  a  supplementary  reflection 
which  finally  appeared  in  his  manuscript  vol 
ume  as  follows  — 

The  good  old  times  forsooth !  Who  knows  but 
we  are  now  living  in  crude  and  crass  antiquity? 
Certainly  the  nineteenth  is  the  first  comparatively 
decent  century  the  world  has  ever  known. 

The  philosopher  was,  in  fact,  unphilosophi- 
cally  annoyed  at  the  radiant  appearance  and 
5 


66  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

happy  association  of  the  two  who  now  came 
up  to  him  like  a  dual  incarnation  of  young 
summer.  It  was  not  that  crabbed  age  and 
youth  could  not  live  together,  for  his  mind 
was  far  younger  and  less  jaded  than  Robert's; 
he  could  have  spent  a  whole  afternoon  in  equal 
companionship  with  the  little  girl  of  "  Even 
ings  at  Home;"  and  surely  Amoret  was  good 
company  the  whole  year  round.  Nor  did  he 
suspect  or  distrust  Amoret  in  any  way;  she 
was  in  some  things  his  elder  and  his  teacher, 
for  she  really  had  more  of  the  only  ancient 
thing  in  the  world  —  wisdom  —  and  he  knew 
it.  If  Eros  can  still  befool  Psyche  in  these 
days,  so  be  it;  Psyche  ought  to  know  better 
in  equal  opportunity.  But,  in  the  first  place, 
Robert  had  interrupted  a  thought,  yes,  two 
thoughts,  for  the  great  work;  a  circumstance 
to  upset  anybody.  Then  again,  the  childly 
heart  of  the  author  of  "The  Philosophy  of 
Life  "  had  always  mistrusted  Robert  as  not 
being  a  true  boy,  but  a  masquerading  metemp 
sychosis.  Last  and  chiefest  was  the  everlast 
ing  intrusiveness  of  sex. 

"Ah!  how  do  you  do,  sir,"  said  the  old 
gentleman,  with  punctilious  kindliness,  in 
reply  to  Robert's  rather  eager  and  would-be 
flattering  greeting;  yet  what  his  mind  was 
saying  to  itself  was  this:  "May  the  good 


Here  and  There.  67 

Lord  keep  my  little  girl;  but  I  do  wish  she 
might  have  been  born  a  thousand  years  hence, 
when  love  will  be  nothing  but  friendship,  yet 
keeping  its  own  pretty  name. " 

Afterward  they  went  in  for  a  little,  and 
while  Amoret  prepared  for  her  music-lesson, 
the  young  man  and  the  old  one  sat  in  the  cool 
back  room  behind  the  bookshelves  and  coun 
ters,  overlooking  the  self-centred  river  in 
which,  forty  years  apart,  both  of  them  used  to 
row,  and  fish,  and  swim.  Rodney,  being 
obliged  to  his  senior  for  not  pestering  him 
with  misfitting  inquiries,  talked  volubly  of  his 
own  works  and  ways  at  home  and  abroad, 
skipping  from  Bellwood  to  Washington 
square,  and  from  the  Pinakothek  to  the  dan 
delions  on  the  disused  wharf,  with  an  agility 
that  even  Mr.  Welby  had  to  admit  was  about 
as  graceful  and  self-sacrificing  as  that  of  a 
kitten  at  play.  The  two  were  so  unlike  in  all 
their  tastes  and  mentalities  that  at  least  some 
brief  conversation  between  them  was  easy; 
we  talk  most  readily,  in  the  off-hand  meetings 
of  life,  with  those  who  are  like  us,  or  with  our 
utter  opposites.  Few  indeed  were  the  people 
who  were  not  put  at  ease  by  Mr.  Welby 's 
manner  of  gentle  superiority  and  self-respect 
ing  deference,  —  superiority,  for  his  was  the 
aristocracy  of  the  man  of  thought;  deference, 


68  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

for  he  knew  he  was  a  public  servant  behind 
his  counter.  As  for  Rodney,  he  was  never 
ill  at  ease  save  when  he  suspected  that  people 
disliked  or  distrusted  him;  and  nothing  in 
Mr.  Welby's  manner  troubled  him  at  this 
time. 

Indeed,  when  there  happened  to  come  to 
Rodney's  mind  the  not  disagreeable  thought 
that  he  was  now  getting  for  a  couple  of  easily 
made  paintings  more  than  the  patient  book- 
vendor  and  his  rediscovered  granddaughter 
could  make  in  their  most  economical  and 
painstaking  year,  his  self-esteem  grew  pleas 
antly  warm,  and  he  ventured  to  put  on  a  little 
of  that  purring  and  patronizing  manner  which 
"  successful  "  people  like  to  carry  back  to  their 
native  heath.  On  the  whole,  however,  the 
clear-cut  old  face  opposite  him  displayed  no 
signs  of  being  overawed  by  inquiries  concern 
ing  the  book  business,  literature,  or  Amoret's 
education.  With  scrupulous  loyalty  to  his 
love  for  the  girl,  however,  her  grandfather 
told  his  eager  young  listener  some  little  part 
of  her  faithful  helpfulness  in  making  the  old 
shop  more  attractive;  in  getting  pretty  and 
modern  wall-papers,  and  lamp-shades,  and 
stationery,  and  pocket-books,  and  periodicals 
to  add  to  the  somewhat  venerable  stock  in 
trs.de;  and  in  deftly  selling  the  same.  Even 


Here  and  There.  69 

Mr.  Welby,  however,  did  not  know  how 
Amoret  detested  the  knickknackery  of  the 
so-called  modern  bookstore,  — how  she  hated 
to  part  with  the  best-loved  of  the  old  vol 
umes,  or  how  hard  it  was  for  her  to  be  polite 
to  brainless  or  overbearing  customers  whose 
money  she  knew  was  much  needed  in  the  old 
wooden  till,  so  scantily  sprinkled  with  coin. 

On  the  more  important  subject  of  the 
development  of  Amoret's  personality  Robert 
got  no  more  information  than  that  her  sole 
teachers  had  been  (aside  from  the  village 
schools)  her  grandfather,  his  books,  Nature, 
and  herself,  in  that  order  of  ascending  im 
portance. 

When  Amoret  came  downstairs,  the  happy 
look  still  irradiating  her  whole  face,  Rodney 
was  gazing  through  the  window  at  the  little 
square  patch  of  tide-water  where  the  river 
rose  and  fell  on  the  slope  between  two  old 
wharves.  Boyish  memories  rose  to  haunt 
every  spot  in  Bellwood,  and  half  of  them 
suggested  pictures.  Here  he  had  once  seen 
an  open-air  baptism,  and  had  wondered 
whether  the  tall  and  half-submerged  minister, 
in  his  anxiety  to  keep  down  the  floating  skirts 
of  the  "candidate,"  would  unwittingly  disap 
pear  in  the  sudden  hole  off  Pinkington's 
wharf,  of  the  location  of  which  the  town  boys 


jo  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

had  superior  knowledge.  Here,  too,  he  had 
once  seen  a  boatman  towing  to  shore  a  drowned 
maniac  from  the  hospital  up  the  river,  the 
tow-rope  tied  to  the  rigid  arm  that  the  swollen 
but  half-sunk  corpse  upstretched  above  the 
hot  summer  wave.  What  a  good  subject  for 
a  canvas !  but  very  likely  it  would  not  sell ; 
certainly  not  to  the  provincial  plutocrats  who 
bought  his  village-blacksmiths  and  children- 
in-apple-trees  to  hang  in  their  dining-rooms. 
Something  really  ought  to  be  done,  however, 
with  that  ghastly  clutch  of  the  dead  fingers, 
holding,  as  it  were,  their  own  painter  —  and 
as  the  wretched  little  pun  came  into  his  head 
there  was  a  good  honest  step  behind  him,  and 
he  turned  to  see  Amoret  again,  —  Amoret  in 
a  nondescript  brown  of  some  fashion  that 
neither  he  nor  she  could  assign  to  type  or 
period,  but  that  seemed  right  in  the  eyes  of 
the  artist  and  of  the  wearer  alike.  Her 
clothes  appeared  to  do  nothing  but  drape  the 
person  they  covered,  which,  perhaps,  is  one 
of  the  functions  of  clothes. 

"Well,  Robert,"  said  she,  "are  you  going 
with  me  to  the  south  end?  When  are  you 
going  home  ? "  she  added,  abruptly.  The 
question  would  not  have  annoyed  Mr.  Welby 
if  he  had  not  detected  in  it  some  suspicion  of 
desire  that  the  date  be  not  immediate. 


Here  and  There.  71 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  laughed  he;  "that's 
just  what  you  used  to  ask  when  I  'd  clumsily 
spoiled  your  play-tea,  and  lost  one  of  your 
doll's  gloves,  and  torn  the  frontispiece  of  your 
pet  picture-book." 

"Yes,"  said  Araoret;  "you  used  to  stand 
for  change,  and  I  for  conservatism.  What 
would  the  world  be  without  either?" 

"  It  would  be  perfect  with  the  two  to 
gether,"  flashed  Rodney's  reply,  which  struck 
him  as  being  so  pat  that  he  would  risk  it 
even  in  Mr.  Welby's  presence.  He  seldom 
made  any  remarks  without  some  reference  to 
himself,  or  the  likes  and  dislikes  that  formed 
the  sum  total  of  his  personality;  and  he  was 
never  so  self-conscious  as  in  his  swiftest  im 
provisations.  But  Amoret  interested  him, 
and  he  could  see  plainly  enough  that  he  inter 
ested  her,  at  least  for  the  present.  Just  what 
it  all  meant  he  would  perhaps  think  out 
sometime,  should  it  seem  worth  while. 

"Good-bye,  grandpa,"  said  Amoret,  with  a 
sidewise  glance  and  a  little  pat  on  his  coat- 
sleeve.  "Good-bye  for  now,"  added  Rodney, 
who  was  never  formal  save  when  compelled ; 
and  Mr.  Welby  gave  them  a  minor  benedic 
tion  in  the  suggestion  that  they  would  better 
not  talk  simultaneously  all  the  time,  as  on 
the  whole  a  dialogue  suited  conversational 
speech  better  than  did  a  chorus. 


ji  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

As  they  started  to  walk  down  the  river 
street,  Rodney  could  hardly  avoid  a  swift 
reflection  on  the  narrow  circumstances  of 
Amoret  and  her  grandfather,  indeed,  of  Bell- 
wood  in  its  entirety.  On  the  whole,  all  of 
them  seemed  to  lack  the  glitter  of  prosperity 
on  the  one  hand  —  pleasure-accepting  Rodney 
loved  Paris  and  felt  no  discontent  with  New 
York  —  and  the  romance  of  actual  dilapida 
tion  and  antiquity  on  the  other.  But  he  was 
too  much  of  an  epicurean  to  concern  himself 
about  money  or  the  lack  of  it,  and  his  thought 
only  consolidated  itself  in  the  non-committal 
remark:  "Do  you  ever  get  tired  of  Bell- 
wood  ?  " 

"Only  once  in  a  while,  when  for  a  little 
minute  I  tire  of  everything;  but  I  guess  Para 
dise  is  as  near  here  as  anywhere. " 

"Nearer,  nowadays,"  soliloquized  the  artist 
in  a  half-tone;  and  Amoret  replied:  "What 
a  good-natured  couple  of  friends  we  seem  to 
be  to-day !  We  ought  to  arrange  an  antipho- 
nal  service,  you  to  say  '  I  am  happy, '  and  I  to 
reply,  '  I  am,  too. ' ' 

"Yes,"  said  he;  "then  there  could  be  a 
chorus  to  the  duologue :  '  Happy  are  we  both 
of  us,  the  livelong  day. '  " 

"I  think  there  is  too  much  grumbling  in 
the  world,  too  much  endurance,  and  too  little 


Here  and  There.  73 

joy,"  said  Amoret.  "I  know  what  work  is; 
and  sometimes  the  little  devil  of  Worry  comes 
prowling  round  my  door;  but  for  all  that  I  'm 
happy  and  grateful,  most  of  the  time." 

"Gratitude,  too,"  added  Rodney,  "need  not 
always  be  outspoken ;  how  grateful  that  warm 
cat  on  the  doorstep  looks,  just  now.  Some 
times  I  think  I  'd  like  to  be  metamorphosed 
into  a  feline." 

"Wild  or  domestic?"  queried  Amoret. 
"But  I  am  not  sure  that  a  perennial  flower 
would  not  be  better;  every  luxury  of  light 
and  shade,  and  rain  and  frost,  and  cool 
hibernation  in  turn,  and  then  gentle  death 
on  a  soft  grave." 

"  You  would  n't  be  you  unless  you  were 
talking  about  graves. " 

"  But  not  about  worms  or  sheeted  goblins. 
Death  is  nothing  to  me  but  contrast,  — black 
against  white,  for  the  white  to  show  more 
brightly.  You  're  an  artist,  and  so  you  know 
all  about  complements  and  values;  it's  just 
so  -with  joy  and  sorrow;  I  honestly  would 
prefer  achieved  virtue  with  sin  plain  in  sight, 
to  negative  innocence;"  and  the  girl  looked 
far  away  down  to  the  turn  of  the  river. 
Robert,  for  his  part,  fully  appreciated  the 
remark,  but  felt,  for  once  in  his  life,  a  certain 
sense  of  shame  at  the  unlikelihood  that  he 


74  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

would  ever  prove  its  truth.  So  he  quickly 
turned  the  subject,  in  his  favorite  way,  by 
exclaiming  repetitiously,  "  Oh,  did  I  ever 
have  so  bright  an  afternoon  in  all  my  life ! " 

"  I  hope  you  have  had  better  ones,  and  will 
have  many  more,"  said  Amoret;  "but  it  is 
pleasant  for  wayfarers  on  life's  pretty  path 
ways  to  meet  and  just  resume  the  dropped 
threads.  That 's  what  friendship  ought  to 
be;  twenty  years  afterwards,  in  Timbuctoo, 
we  should  start  where  we  left  off,  as  though 
nothing  had  happened.  So  good-bye  until 
next  time,"  said  she,  with  a  quick  little  laugh, 
as  she  ran  up  the  steps  of  Squire  Bennett's 
bare  white  house,  where  she  was  to  give  her 
music-lesson,  and  left  Robert  standing  in  sur 
prise  on  the  sidewalk. 

Things  were  always  so  pleasant  for  him 
that  he  had  fallen  into  the  habit  of  thinking 
that  he,  as  a  matter  of  course,  must  be  the  one 
to  decide  when  to  say  "  enough ;  "  so  he  was  a 
little  jarred  by  this  abrupt  termination  of  a 
mildly  titillating  experience.  Amoret  was 
as  innocent  of  coquetry  as  a  marble  Diana,  or 
a  puppy  that  assumes  the  prompt  friendship 
of  the  whole  world ;  but  had  she  planned  it, 
she  could  hardly  have  left  on  the  painter's 
mind  a  quicker  zest  for  further  companionship 
than  she  caused  by  her  flight  up  the  steps. 


Here  and  There.  75 

It  was  as  though  a  humming-bird  had  suddenly 
swept  into  the  illimitable;  but  Rodney  pre 
ferred  to  play  that  part  himself. 

The  artist's  stay  in  Bellwood  was  pro 
longed  by  daily  indecision  until  a  fortnight 
had  passed.  He  accepted,  without  visible 
reluctance,  a  few  invitations  to  simple  sup 
pers,  here  and  there,  and  pleasantly  ate,  at 
those  repasts  served  according  to  the  local 
fashion,  his  modicum  of  flaky  raised  biscuits, 
"  sauce, "  and  two  or  three  kinds  of  cake.  The 
dining-rooms  and  shady  parlors  seemed,  to 
his  artistic  eye,  quite  to  miss  duly  propor 
tioned  effects ;  the  old  silver  candlesticks  on 
the  mantels  were  unused,  the  delicate  gilt- 
rimmed  china  was  flanked  by  plated  silverware 
of  Philistine  patterns,  and  solid  mahogany 
chairs  stood  too  near  veneered  centre-tables 
and  pyramidal  "what-nots."  The  noteworthy 
festivities,  however,  were  a  symmetrical  and 
anciently  aristocratic  tea  at  Squire  Bennett's, 
and  a  "delightful  semi-Bohemian  noonday 
lunch  in  Mr.  Welby's  upstairs  dining-room 
above  the  wharf.  Amoret's  intuitive  taste 
minimized  the  vulgarities  of  eating  and  at  the 
same  time  raised  appetite  to  the  level  of  a 
legitimate  pleasure. 

In  fact,  for  him,  everything  in  the  fortnight 
seemed  to  centre  around  that  meditative  and 


7  6  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

musical  up-country  maiden.  The  other  young 
girls  of  the  town  were,  in  his  frankly  sybaritic 
analysis,  somewhat  too  rural;  while  a  few, 
possessing  unquestionable  intellect  and  pos 
sible  taste,  were  not  sufficiently  conspicuous 
as  regards  youth,  good  looks,  or  pretty  gowns. 
Among  the  men,  Rodney's  chief  associates 
were  Mr.  Welby  himself  —  whom  he  perforce 
respected  and  slightly  feared,  for  his  un 
doubted  mental  strength  and  his  silently 
invincible  guardianship  of  Amoret  —  and 
the  youngish,  book-loving  doctor  who  lived 
in  Rodney's  birthplace.  This  Doctor  Ur- 
quhart  —  for  that  was  the  way  he  spelled  his 
name,  Rodney  discovered  —  seemed  to  know 
the  contents  of  the  neighboring  village  library, 
and  some  things  besides ;  perhaps  it  was  be 
cause  he  was  not  of  New  England  birth,  but 
had  strayed  into  the  Bellwood  enclosure  from 
some  other  bailiwick.  At  any  rate,  he  was 
not  provincial;  Rodney,  since  his  Parisian 
studies,  had  some  expansive  ideas  on  the 
subject  of  one's  natal  environment,  and  was 
glad  to  find  that  not  all  Bellwood  people  were 
alike. 

As  far  as  Amoret  was  concerned,  walks 
and  talks  and  a  picnic  at  Runaway  Pond  and 
a  row  on  the  river  had  followed  with  Ameri 
can  freedom,  but  somehow  he  felt  that  he  had 


Here  and  There.  77 

made  no  progress.  Progress?  toward  what? 
Was  he  in  love?  Distinctly  not,  in  his  own 
opinion.  Was  she  ?  If  so  her  tact  was  con 
summate.  Rodney  had  adequate  knowledge 
of  the  chess  of  flirtation,  whatever  the  astute 
ness  or  the  simplicity  of  his  opponent;  but 
Amoret's  happy  and  unmonotonous  friendli 
ness  puzzled  him.  For  himself,  drifting  was 
good  enough  fun.  But  his  pleasure  in 
Amoret's  ready  promise  to  exchange  an  occa 
sional  letter  was  mitigated  by  a  clear  convic 
tion  that  his  good-bye  call  was  a  failure.  A 
man  never  feels  less  satisfied  with  himself 
than  when  he  knows  that  he  is  worse  than 
wasting  the  few  minutes  left  him  in  the  pres 
ence  of  a  woman  he  admires.  The  experience 
is  dust  at  the  time  and  ashes  afterward.  One 
misty  remark  of  Amoret's  bothered  him  all 
the  way  back  to  New  York ;  it  rose  between 
him  and  the  sun  as  he  looked  out  of  the  win 
dow  on  the  day-train,  and  it  overcast  the  moon 
as  he  stood  on  the  deck  of  the  Sound  steam 
boat.  "I  never  could  care  for  anyone,"  said 
she,  ""  a  single  minute  after  I  found  him  dis 
loyal  to  the  ideal  of  his  best  moods;  for  then 
I  should  know  that  my  supposed  friend  had 
never  really  lived." 

"  Must  a  man  always  be  perfect  ?  "  Rodney 
had   replied,    with  a   little  irritation,  which 


7  8  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

was  not  wholly  concealed  in  his  codicil  re 
mark:  "You  are  too  good  for  this  world;  I 
don't  know  where  you  can  find  fit  companions 
this  side  of  Paradise." 

"I  mean,"  said  Amoret,  slowly,  and  she 
clasped  her  hands  around  her  knees  and 
looked  at  the  moon,  "  that  if  I  ever  loved  any 
body,  woman  or  man,  who  proved  to  be  differ 
ent  from  what  I  thought,  my  love  would  have 
been  given  to  a  creature  that  never  existed, 
and  so  would  come  back  to  me  as  though  it 
had  not  been." 

"But  there  is  a  love,"  said  Rodney,  "that 
follows  into  the  gutter  and  the  depths  of  the 
sea,"  and  he  felt  that  he  had  the  better  of  the 
argument.  "  It  may  be  a  regret,  but  it 's  also 
a  hope. " 

"One  pities  a  suicide,"  said  Amoret,  sim 
ply,  and  she  seemed  to  Rodney  to  be  as  far 
away  from  him  as  a  star. 

"Aren't  you  just  a  little  bit  more  inexora 
ble  than  God?"  retorted  Rodney;  and  spent 
the  next  thirty  minutes  in  more  or  less  floun 
dering  efforts  to  restore  things  to  the  condi 
tion  in  which  they  stood  before  this  little  con 
versation  anent  the  verities  of  the  eternities. 

For  there  seemed  something  actually  gro 
tesque  in  such  a  turn  to  the  talk  just  then. 
Amoret,  as  the  moon  was  softly  rising  across 


Here  and  There.  79 

the  still  river,  had  been  playing  the  allegretto 
from  Chopin's  opus  59;  and  Rodney's  half- 
indulged  suspicion  that  she  had  been  talking 
to  him  through  the  keys  was  strengthened 
when  she  rose  with  a  little  sigh  of  weary  ten 
derness  (so  he  supposed),  and  asked  whether 
he  would  n't  like  to  go  out  on  the  old  wharf 
and  see  the  moon  rise.  There  was  a  great  dry 
mossy  log,  a  relic  of  the  days  of  Bellwood's 
commercial  dreams,  on  which  Amoret  liked 
to  sit  summer  evenings;  and  thither  they 
went.  As  luck  would  have  it,  Mr.  Welby 
had  delightedly  gone  up  to  his  desk  to  wrestle 
with  the  proper  wording  of  a  new  thought 
which  seemed  to  him  the  best  that  had 
occurred  to  him  for  some  time,  as  far  as  the 
real  inner  idea  of  the  Book  was  concerned : 

To  live  the  right  life  is  to  do  nothing  and  every 
thing. 

Rodney's  handsome  self  was  artistically 
and  attractively  enveloped  in  summer  habili 
ments  that  gave  the  best  effect  to  the  hatless 
hair,-  the  impulsive  eyes,  and  the  radiant 
young  face,  made  more  attractive  by  a  visible 
mood  of  anticipatory  memory  of  so  delight 
some  a  time.  The  summer  day  had  been  hot ; 
every  movement  of  Amoret's  round  neck  and 
half-visible  shoulders  was  closely  followed  by 


80  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

delicate  clinging  lace;  her  bare  arms  had 
never  a  faulty  line,  and  the  little  bulge  of  the 
wrist  was  really  vexatiously  pretty;  one  foot 
rested  on  the  other,  while  above  her  low  shoes 
Rodney  noted  a  pair  of  clocked  silk  stockings 
her  mother  used  to  wear  at  the  dances  of  a 
generation  ago.  A  faint  odor  of  violets 
exhaled  from  a  bunch  of  the  flowers  carelessly 
tucked  into  the  top  of  her  high  belt. 

It  seemed  to  Rodney  that  there  were  but 
two  things  in  the  world,  — Amoret  and  he; 
or,  more  properly,  only  one  thing,  —  his  as 
yet  unknown  feeling  towards  this  lovely  girl. 
They  talked  a  little  of  the  moonrise  over  the 
eastern  hill;  of  the  ripple  of  the  river;  of  the 
distant  light  reflected  in  Braham's  Cove,  down 
below;  of  the  clearness  of  the  nine-o'clock 
bell  coming  down  from  the  city  two  miles 
north;  of  the  old  days  and  the  new;  of  art 
and  beauty ;  and,  before  they  knew  it,  of  the 
might-have-been  and  the  may-be,  the  mystery 
of  life.  Then  they  looked  up  to  the  zenith, 
with  its  sparse  stars  in  the  bright  moonlight, 
and  spoke  of  space  and  time.  Amoret' s 
thoughts  were  always  readily  turned  in  a  kind 
of  far-eyed  abstraction  to  the  depths  of  the 
oceans  of  the  ultimate  skies;  and  now,  with 
soul  bent  by  their  poetic  talk  to  the  illimita- 
bles  of  the  astronomy  of  the  unseen,  she  knew 


Here  and  There.  81 

and  yet  did  not  know  when  Rodney  picked  a 
few  of  the  longer-stemmed  flowers  from  her 
waist  and  twined  them  in  and  out  of  her  hair. 
It  was  to  her  as  though  her  grandfather  were 
smoothing  her  forehead  when  some  problem 
perplexed  the  little  girl's  head;  but  to  Rod 
ney  it  seemed  that  the  time  had  well-nigh 
come  to  catch  that  white  loveliness  in  eager 
arms  and  give  their  first  red  kiss  to  the  rose 
bud  lips  with  the  melancholy  little  curl.  He 
heard  his  heart  beat  the  quicker  as  a  little 
wind  from  the  north  blew  just  one  hair  from 
Amoret's  pretty  head  across  his  cheek,  which 
tingled  and  then  grew  cold. 

But  Amoret  sprang  up  with  the  suddenness 
of  one  in  a  dream,  her  soul  open  only  to  the 
ideas  just  broached  anew,  and  exclaimed: 
"Oh,  things  must  sooner  or  later  be  right  in 
this  wonderful  world,  with  a  million  more 
wonderful  all  around  its  poor  little  self." 

Rodney's  first  impulse  was  to  grasp  her 
hand,  but  on  second  thought  he  sat  in  silent 
mood  and  watched  her  as  she  tossed  a  pebble 
toward  a  bit  of  wood  floating  down  the  moon 
lit  stream,  noting,  to  his  surprise,  that  she 
hit  it. 

"  We  are  all  parts  of  some  great  possibility," 
said  he,  as  though  he  had  followed  her  line 
of  meditation  all  along.  "You  and  I,  you 
6 


82  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

and  I;  what  if  we  had  lived  a  thousand  years 
ago  or  a  thousand  years  hence?  Did  you 
ever  hear  an  old  song  called,  'A  Conjecture,' 
or  something  like  that?  " 

"No,"  said  she;  "what  is  it?" 

"Three  little  stanzas  I  found  in  an  old 
song-book,  with  the  queerest  copperplate 
pictures,  in  your  grandfather's  shop  the  other 
day;  they  partly  stuck  in  my  memory,  and 
ran  about  like  this :  — 

" '  I  wonder,  dear,  if  you  had  been 

The  maiden  queen's  pet  maid  of  honor, 
A  flower  of  that  fair  time  wherein 
A  court  of  roses  smiled  upon  her, 

" '  And  I,  ere  while,  by  Trojan  wall 

Had  fiercely  fought  for  Grecian  glory, 
Beheld  the  pride  of  Priam  fall, 
And  home  in  Athens  told  the  story. 

'"Whether  we,  wandering  in  the  glow 
Of  the  Hereafter's  radiant  spaces, 
Would  there  have  mutely  met,  and  so 

Seen  love  make  bright  our  yearning  faces.' " 

"That 's  my  idea  of  love,"  said  he;  "it  's 
above  space,  or  time,  or  law"  —  and  the  last 
word  of  the  three  was  just  one  too  many,  for 
Amoret  noted  it  first  of  all,  wondered  what  it 
meant,  and  asked  him. 

"  'There  is  no  sin  to  hearts  that  love, '  "  said 


Here  and  There.  83 

he,  in  continued  ill-fortune.  Then  it  was 
that  Amoret  sat  down  again,  but  it  chanced 
to  be  on  the  farther  end  of  the  log ;  the  vio 
lets  had  fallen  from  the  ebon  flame  of  her  hair 
when  she  tossed  the  stone;  her  face  was 
grave;  and  she  picked  up  and  threw  over  her 
shoulders,  with  a  tiny  shiver,  the  little  shawl 
that  seemed  so  superfluous  ten  minutes 
before. 

"Oh,"  said  she  in  a  low  voice,  "that  all, 
all  depends  on  what  one  means  by  love."  And 
then  she  explained  it  in  the  phrase  that 
annoyed  Rodney  on  his  homeward  journey, 
and  with  diminishing  frequency  for  the  rest 
of  his  life. 

Rodney  reached  New  York  in  no  very  ami 
able  humor.  Amoret  had  at  first  quickened 
and  irradiated  his  not  very  enthusiastic  mem 
ories  of  Bellwood;  but  the  drab-colored  events 
of  night-before-last  had  dispelled  the  glow 
and  left  things  rather  worse  than  before.  His 
pride  had  been  touched;  when  a  winsome 
egotist  has  but  half  made  up  his  mind  to  fol 
low  a  certain  line  of  irresponsible  action,  he 
does  not  enjoy  having  a  contrary  decision 
thrust  before  him  by  somebody  else.  To  go 
on  and  make  Amoret  something  more  than  a 
summer  fancy  would  take  time  and  trouble, 
and  involve  a  pretended  or  actual  reconstruc- 


84  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

tion  of  his  own  personality,  which  had  always 
satisfied  him  sufficiently  well;  but  to  banish 
her  from  his  mind  was  for  some  reason  not 
easy.  Indeed,  for  the  first  time  within  his 
memory,  it  seemed  as  though  fate  was  inter 
fering  with  freedom,  and  the  effect  of  the 
interference  was  to  vulgarize  the  actual  be 
cause  of  the  loss  of  the  ideal  —  even  the  old 
ideal  of  undisturbed  epicureanism. 

Sending  his  luggage  to  his  rooms  by  ex 
press,  Rodney  was  minded  to  walk  to  his 
Washington  square  quarters,  and  to  take 
breakfast  on  the  way.  The  cool  warehouses 
on  Warren  street,  with  their  smell  of  grocer 
ies  and  vegetables  and  crockery  crates,  and  the 
rumble  of  drays  on  West  Broadway,  affected 
his  mind  with  a  certain  sense  of  friendly 
consolation;  the  world  went  on,  anyway,  if 
girls  did  act  unexpectedly.  He  wondered 
whether  that  stooping  and  business-like  rag 
picker,  with  the  bulgy  bag  on  his  back,  ever 
had  a  love  affair;  and  with  his  usual  quick 
eye  for  effects,  he  made  up  his  mind  to  paint 
sometime  a  dual  picture,  — the  love-letter  in 
two  stages  of  its  career;  Alpha  and  Omega 
would  be  a  good  title  for  it.  Then  his  eye 
caught  old  Johnstine,  the  wholesale  grocer, 
just  entering  his  nine-story  "establishment; " 
he  knew  Johnstine  by  sight,  but  Johnstine 


Here  and  There.  85 

knew  not  him.  Did  the  plutocrat  ever  think 
of  his  boyhood  in  Ulster  county,  or  the  brook 
behind  the  hill?  Probably  not,  though  Rod 
ney  had  once  sold  him,  through  a  middle 
man,  a  picture  of  a  lot  of  cows  by  a  log 
trough  near  the  bars;  eight  hundred  dollars 
for  a  week's  work;  pretty  good  pay,  chuckled 
the  simple-minded  artist,  as  he  gave  a  glance 
at  the  man  of  money,  and  of  flour  barrels. 
Crossing  Canal  street,  he  noticed  the  spitz 
dog,  dyed  red,  blue,  and  yellow,  as  an 
advertisement  of  his  owner's  trade;  and  he 
laughed  to  himself  at  the  thought  of  the  way 
in  which  a  few  tints  catch  the  public  eye. 
After  all,  the  dyer  and  he  were  in  the  same 
business. 

As  he  followed  his  leisurely  path  through 
the  broad  shabbiness  of  South  Fifth  avenue, 
he  happened  to  think  how  many  high-up  win 
dows  were  adorned  with  forlorn  geraniums  or 
nondescript  dusty  greennesses  in  tomato-cans 
and  soap-boxes :  another  subject  for  a  senti 
mental  picture.  Really,  he  must  set  up  a 
painting  establishment  and  hire  apprentices, 
if  this  sort  of  artistic  fertility  were  to  con 
tinue.  "  Beneficial  results  of  vacation  travel 
in  quickening  the  mind,"  he  laughed  to  him 
self,  as  with  slightly  restored  self-satisfac 
tion  he  turned  into  Bleecker  street  for  a 


86  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

leisurely  breakfast  in  a  Gallic  basement  res 
taurant  affected  by  men  of  his  set.  And  just 
around  the  corner  he  met  the  magnificent 
Nancy  so  abruptly  that  he  almost  ran  into  her. 
"Oh,"  said  she,  "beg  pardon,"  said  he;  and 
then  the  two  acquaintances  indicated  orally  a 
simultaneous  desire  to  ascertain  the  cause  of 
so  early  an  appearance  on  the  street. 

Nancy  Gibber  was  the  daughter  of  a  Lon 
don  cabman,  whose  long-suffering  horse  had 
kicked  him  to  death,  in  a  spasm  of  that 
revenge  which  is  a  kind  of  wild  justice,  when 
the  child  was  six  years  old.  A  jaded  widow 
—  who  belonged  to  the  class  of  beings  that 
always  have  something  happening  to  them  — 
and  five  children  were  left  to  make  their  way 
in  the  world;  and  Nancy's  juvenile  career 
had  irregularly  proceeded  until  she  rose,  at 
fifteen,  to  be  a  barmaid.  Her  amiability  and 
her  prettiness  made  her  a  favorite,  and  her 
easy  coolness  saved  her  from  downright  sin, 
though  she  had  peccadilloes  by  the  score. 
She  was  above  vice  and  below  respectability. 
If  more  brilliant  or  more  vicious,  she  would 
have  been  dangerous ;  but  as  her  desires  were 
satisfied  with  a  particularly  good  dinner  o' 
Sundays,  a  neat  dress,  and  a  few  shillings 
saved  at  the  end  of  the  month,  she  led  with 
reasonable  blamelessness  a  life  that  would 


Here  and  There.  87 

have  been  impossible  in  Paris  and  incredible 
in  Boston.  As  for  Man,  she  had  come  to 
regard  him  chiefly  as  a  bibulous  animal,  with 
a  few  cheap  jokes. 

But  fortune  soon  advanced  her  to  a  plane 
at  once  more  conspicuous  and  more  remuner 
ative.  Burlesque  was  the  vogue  at  the  time, 
in  half  the  London  theatres ;  and  while  some 
humble  intellectual,  histrionic,  or  vocal 
powers  were  needed  in  its  producers,  vigorous 
and  striking  physical  personalities  were  yet 
more  necessary.  One  day  a  theatrical  man 
ager  stepped  into  the  Golden  Bell  for  a  glass 
of  Burton,  and  was  duly  served  by  the  stately 
and  affable  Nancy,  who  caught  his  profes 
sional  eye  at  once,  what  with  her  Junonian 
shoulders,  her  yellow  hair,  her  blue  eyes, 
and  her  black  dress  and  white  collar.  Why 
not  introduce  her  as  a  Venus,  or  spirit  of  the 
wood,  or  goddess  of  the  weird,  or  something 
of  the  sort,  in  his  forthcoming  extravaganza 
to  be  called  the  Procession  of  Life?  Two  or 
three  interviews  proved  that  Nancy  had  an 
audible  voice,  an  easy  carriage,  and  a  teach 
able  disposition;  and  though  her  powers  of 
reading  and  speaking  were  limited,  and  of 
vocalization  apparently  non-existent,  he  had 
never  seen  a  flesh-and-blood  statue  of  greater 
possibilities  of  professional  utilization.  Her 


88  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

name,  he  found,  was  Nancy  Crackenby;  the 
first  title  was  good  enough,  for  old-fashioned 
christenings  were  coming  into  theatrical 
vogue ;  while  the  surname  was  readily  changed 
to  a  well-known  dissyllable  that  looked  well 
on  the  bills. 

Nancy  was  five  feet  nine  inches  tall, 
weighed  a  hundred  and  sixty-five  pounds, 
had  round,  soft  hands  of  considerable  size,  a 
figure  fit  to  translate  into  perennial  marble, 
and  a  good  walk ;  what  else  was  needed  in  a 
stage  procession?  Let  the  homelier  women 
do  the  singing  and  talking  and  gesticulating. 
When  the  play  was  brought  out  she  instantly 
charmed  the  public.  One  of  the  young  uni 
versity  graduates  who  wrote  dramatic  criti 
cisms  for  a  leading  daily  said  of  her:  incessu 
patuit  dea;  and  the  phrase,  with  due  care  for 
accuracy,  letter  by  letter,  was  transferred  to 
the  bill-boards  next  day.  Her  weekly  wage 
was  four  pounds,  —  plenty  for  a  roast  beef 
dinner  every  day,  for  good  clothes  on  the 
street,  for  an  occasional  barber's  dressing  of 
her  huge  mass  of  tawny  hair,  and,  best  of 
all,  for  a  high-priced  canary  bird  she  had 
coveted  for  six  months.  A  fortnight's  sav 
ings  bought  the  bird,  the  third  week  supplied 
a  pretty  cage,  and  the  noodles'  bouquets  that 
now  came  to  her  by  wholesale  were  more  than 


Here  and  There.  89 

sufficient  to  surround  the  golden-throated 
singer  with  bowers  fit  for  his  most  rapturous 
dreams.  As  for  the  notes  attached  to  the 
flowers,  Nancy  could  not  read,  without  more 
trouble  than  she  was  willing  to  take;  and  her 
tired-faced  mother,  whom  she  now  transferred 
to  her  own  modest  quarters,  was  perfection  in 
the  duties  of  virago-guardian  against  persecu 
tions  on  the  part  of  admirers  inclined  to  press 
their  claims  in  person.  Mrs.  Crackenby  had 
not  fought  the  battle  of  life,  and  her  late 
husband,  for  twenty  years  in  vain.  "  They  're 
all  alike,"  was  the  comprehensive  motto  of 
this  follower  of  Schopenhauer;  "good  clo's 
can't  fool  me." 

At  length,  after  a  long  London  run,  the 
Procession  of  Life  made  its  westward  way 
across  the  Atlantic,  and  marched  nightly  over 
the  boards  of  a  down-town  theatre.  The 
Crakenbys  took  up  their  quarters  in  the  top 
story  of  a  house  in  a  once  fashionable  row  on 
the  south  side  of  Bleecker  Street ;  the  radiant 
canary  was  duly  enshrined  in  his  new  sky- 
temple;  bouquets  and  notes  reappeared;  the 
four  pounds  had  become  thirty  dollars;  and 
remittances  began  to  be  sent  to  the  younger 
children  in  London.  New  York  was  charmed 
with  the  source  of  this  modest  prosperity, 
and  though  Nancy's  little  part  in  the  play 


90  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

elicited  no  Latin  quotations,  one  poetic  rhet 
orician  expressed  his  appreciation  of  her 
"magnificence  of  muliebrity." 

When  Rodney  met  Nancy  that  morning, 
around  the  Bleecker  street  corner,  it  was  as 
though  he  had  encountered  an  opposing  fate, 
most  welcome  because  most  dreaded.  It 
might  as  well  come  now  as  any  time.  She 
was  the  incarnation,  in  her  superb  body  — 
with  its  never  half-an-inch  too  much  or  too 
little,  and  its  curves  and  lines  and  tints  that 
even  a  painter  need  not  wish  to  revise,  —  of 
all  that  Amoret  was  not.  Amoret  was  beau 
tiful,  to  be  sure,  but  hers  was  the  beauty  of 
a  star-child,  a  creature  of  a  universal  rather 
than  a  particular  sphere,  in  which  sunlight 
and  song  weighed  as  much  as  bone  and  blood. 
Nancy  was  a  daughter  of  the  world,  a  late 
progeny  of  tempted  and  tempting  Eve,  a  sort 
of  consummation  of  the  physical  element 
alone.  Amoret  was  the  soul  and  mind  of 
New  England,  yet  somehow  strangely  unpro- 
vincial;  but  London  Nancy?  had  she  a  soul 
and  mind  at  all  ?  A  kind  of  pleasant  feline 
intelligence  seemed  to  take  the  place  of 
both.  Yet  Rodney  had  always  liked  her, 
ever  since  they  first  met  in  the  little  fruit- 
shop,  where  he  was  buying  grapes  and  she 
bananas.  Her  large  and  languorous  beauty 


Here  and  There.  91 

was  so  obvious  that  it  charmed  him,  by  the 
law  of  opposites,  into  a  sort  of  indifference  to 
it;  she  was  like  a  partially  animated  picture, 
right  pleasant  to  see;  only  he  made  up  his 
mind  that  if  any  man-about-town  insulted  her, 
he  would  himself  exercise  his  undeniable 
powers  of  fist,  pistol,  or  poniard,  at  the  risk 
of  a  newspaper  sensation  and  a  smirched  name. 

Nancy,  for  her  part,  was  love-free,  but  on 
the  whole  she  had  never  met  anybody  she  bet 
ter  liked  among  the  thousands  of  men  who 
had  stared  at  her.  Meanwhile  Mrs.  Crack- 
enby,  with  the  shrewdness  of  a  thick  mind 
bent  on  a  single  object,  saw  that  Rodney's 
inner  indifference  to  Nancy  made  him  a 
superficially  valuable  friend  and  protector,  for 
the  time  being;  and  so  the  three  had  met  with 
tolerable  frequency,  and  Rodney  had  been  a 
welcome  caller  at  their  humble  rooms,  on 
which  occasion  the  canary,  who  for  the  best 
of  reasons  despised  and  distrusted  men,  re 
lapsed  into  marked  and  unbroken  silence. 

"  When  are  you  going  to  take  mamma  and 
me  fo  Long  Branch,"  said  Nancy  with  per 
tinent  promptness.  "And  where  have  you 
been  these  three  weeks  to  forget  us  entirely  ? 
Off  in  the  country,  I  suppose,  flirting  on  the 
inn-lawns,  and  us  poor  girls  sweating  away 
every  night  on  that  hot  stage." 


92  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

Rodney  was  a  little  disgusted,  slightly 
penitential,  and  half  glad  to  be  once  more 
in  the  society  of  a  conspicuous  inferior. 
Under  the  influence  of  the  last  named  mood 
he  cheerily  said,  "Next  Sunday,  Nan,  we'll 
go  down  to  the  Branch  and  have  no  end  of 
a  jolly  time,"  language  which  gave  to  the 
east  London  lass  a  high  satisfaction  with  the 
linguistic  attainments  of  some  Americans, 
and  brought  into  her  mind  a  series  of  attrac 
tive  pictures,  —  a  steamboat  ride,  quail  on 
toast,  asparagus,  a  glass  of  champagne,  and  a 
half-hour  in  a  new  bathing-dress  of  gorgeous 
stripes  of  yellow  and  black. 

For  the  trio,  rarely  reinforced  by  any 
fourth  or  fifth,  had  not  been  unfamiliar  in 
the  Park,  at  the  table  d° hdte  of  the  Bohemia 
restaurant,  or  even  at  Coney  Island.  Rod 
ney's  artistic  independence  fortified  him 
against  the  possibility  of  disagreeable  criti 
cism  from  his  rather  numerous  friends  of 
both  sexes,  in  the  fashionable  district  up 
town.  He  despised  the  conventional ;  Nancy, 
from  ample  experience,  hated  the  ways  of 
poverty;  and  Mrs.  Crackenby  disliked  nearly 
everybody  and  everything.  Here  was  a  ready 
bond  of  union  equally  unintelligible  to  the 
just  and  the  unjust,  and  chiefly  to  suspicion 
of  whatsoever  social  grade.  In  fact,  Rodney 


Here  and  There.  93 

himself  never  felt  that  he  could  make,  were 
he  required,  any  widely  acceptable  justifica 
tion  of  the  lone  but  delectable  kiss  he  once 
gave  the  lovely  Nancy  at  the  very  instant 
when  both  were  suddenly  submerged  by  a 
mighty  wave  off  the  West  End  Pavilion.  It 
was  just  before  he  went  to  Bellwood;  Nancy, 
doubtless,  had  forgotten  it  already;  but  Rod 
ney  remembered  it  when  the  large  lips,  once 
wet  with  the  sparkling  brine  of  life,  had  lain 
for  a  decade  six  feet  beneath  the  dry  earth  of 
Woodlawn.  And  in  those  later  years  —  a 
middle-aged  man,  over  his  pipe  and  beer  —  he 
wondered  whether  there  would  ever  be  some 
far-off  land,  some  distant  day  of  the  soul, 
when  all  joy  would  be  one  and  interchange 
able;  when  a  memory  would  be  as  good  as  a 
fact,  and  some  single  youthful  aspiration 
fully  excuse  the  stolid  degeneration  of  age. 

They  went  to  Long  Branch.  Rodney  was 
envied  by  half  the  men  on  the  boat,  and  poor 
Nancy  denounced  by  half  the  women ;  while 
both,,  when  they  got  home  and  resumed  their 
business  of  giving  the  public  the  pictures  it 
paid  for  — •  she  behind  the  footlights  and  he 
behind  the  great  gilt  frame  —  saw  the  late 
summer  melt  into  hot  autumn,  and  autumn 
freeze  into  winter.  Nancy  went  "on  the 
road"  with  her  troupe,  and  displayed  herself 


94  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

to  this  or  that  provincial  city;  Rodney 
dreamed  and  painted  as  of  yore,  and,  for 
rumors  anent  Nancy,  fell  into  disfavor  in  a 
certain  courtly  house  on  Forty-seventh  street, 
where  paternal  respectability,  maternal  kindli 
ness,  and  two  pleasant  daughters  had  formerly 
welcomed  him.  Frigidity  such  as  theirs  in 
due  time  chilled  other  social  waters.  Upper 
New  York,  as  far  as  it  recognized  the  young 
artist  at  all,  gradually  decided  that  his  pict 
ures  might  be  bought,  but  that  he  himself 
was  to  be  left  in  the  list  of  mere  street  ac 
quaintance;  and  Rodney  rebelled  at  all  this 
in  direct  and  indiscreet  proportion  to  his 
recognition  of  his  own  folly,  and  his  knowl 
edge  of  some  limited  degree  of  innocence. 
Nancy  was,  after  all,  but  a  sign  in  his  mind; 
but  the  sign  was  of  portent,  for  Rodney  well 
knew  that  his  real  self  was  growing  smaller 
and  forlorner  every  day.  Amoret  had  been 
the  dream ;  Robert  Rodney  was  the  day  lit 
fact.  To  Amoret' s  level  he  had  not  risen, 
apparently  could  not  rise.  It  was  some  grim 
comfort,  perhaps,  to  feel  that  his  chance 
meeting  with  her  had  prevented  him  from 
falling  to  any  lower  plane  of  moral  inanition. 
Society,  indeed,  had  banished  him  in  part, 
and  had  banished  him  for  one  of  the  most 
innocent  things  he  ever  did,  —  as  innocent, 


Here  and  There.  95 

in  its  way,  as  his  walks  and  talks  with 
Amoret.  Very  well,  he  would  banish  society, 
that  artificial  conglomeration  that  so  readily 
forgave  decorous  rascality,  but  was  inexorable 
toward  superficial  impropriety.  But  Amoret  ? 
Was  she  right  in  what  she  had  said  of  occa 
sional  disloyalty  to  one's  best  self?  Was  he 
ever  loyal  to  his  best  self?  Perhaps  not;  but 
from  the  froth  of  his  good  moods  or  quick 
perceptions  he  was  constantly  painting,  so 
folks  said,  sweet  things  that  seemed  to  help 
the  world's  sympathies  and  tendernesses. 
For  a  castaway  to  preach  to  others  was  better 
than  not  to  preach  at  all.  Perhaps  what  he 
needed  was  something  like  the  conversion 
which  the  old  preachers  used  to  urge  when 
they  shouted  the  loudest.  Well,  conversion 
had  never  come  to  him.  What  was  it  that 
old  Mr.  Welby  was  saying  so  oracularly  the 
other  day  ?  "  Nobody  is  so  fettered  as  he 
who  thinks  himself  freest."  If  that  is  the 
condition  of  life,  so  be  it;  there  are  some 
minor  mitigations ;  maybe  somebody  will  like 
to  look  at  one  of  my  pictures  when  the  painter 
is  gone.  Yes,  the  stream  rises  higher  than 
its  source. 

Two  things  constantly  reverted  to  Rod 
ney's  mind  all  that  winter  and  spring,  even 
when  he  was  working  with  all  his  might,  and 


96  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

thereby  making  uncared-for  money  faster  than 
ever. 

One  was  Nancy.  The  little  canary  outlived 
its  owner,  and  sang  as  happily  as  ever  for 
the  two  days  that  the  dead  body  of  the  Diana 
of  east  London  lay  in  splendid  state  in  the 
low-ceiled  attic  room  on  Bleecker  street. 
There  was  neither  romance  nor  tragedy  in 
her  departure  —  she  only  died.  The  barn-like 
stage  of  a  Philadelphia  theatre,  one  raw 
December  night,  had  been  full  of  draughts 
that  chilled  the  girl  to  the  bone.  Some  of  the 
men  in  front  did  not  throw  off  their  over 
coats,  but  her  attire  was  merely  poetical. 
Shivering,  she  came  home  to  New  York,  and 
promptly  succumbed  to  pneumonia ;  "  lung 
fever,"  poor  Mrs.  Crackenby  called  it.  "  Things 
is  allers  'appenin'  to  we,"  she  added,  between 
her  begrudged  tears  and  choky  sobs.  An 
actors'  benevolent  fund  paid  the  expenses  of 
the  burial  and  sent  the  mother  back  to  fight 
the  squalid  London  battle  once  more;  but 
somebody  bought  a  pretty  lot  in  Woodlawn, 
and  set  up  a  costly  runic  cross  bearing  but 
two  initials,  "N.  C,"  and  one  date;  while 
along  its  foot  were  carved  the  words :  "  And 
lead  us  not  into  temptation." 

The  other  thing  that   Rodney  thought   of 
after   Nancy   ended,  was   the  matter  of  the 


Here  and  There,  97 

letters  to  Amoret  The  first  of  his  epistles 
was  written  three  weeks  after  Rodney's  return 
to  New  York,  nor  did  the  irregular  corre 
spondence  cease ;  but  Amoret  never  felt  that 
she  was  lastingly  successful  in  helping  him 
to  discover  his  better  self. 

Perhaps  it  was  ten  years  later  that  Rodney 
painted  his  masterpiece,  "Taedium  Vitae." 
A  girl  lay  alone  on  a  bankside  whose  crushed 
flowers  were  fading,  her  white  face  languor 
ously  turned  toward  the  thickening  night. 
The  supple  beauty  of  the  weary  white  limbs 
was  Nancy's,  but  the  far-off  look  in  the  eyes 
was  Amoret's. 


98  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 


V. 

THE   SURGE   OF  THE   SEA. 

HALF  a  hundred  miles  to  the  southward 
of  Amoret's  birth-home,  sea,  earth, 
and  sky  disport  themselves  in  many  a  mood, 
the  twelvemonth  long.  The  rocky  coast  juts 
forth  in  peaked  headlands,  or  arrays  long  lines 
of  beetling  cliffs  against  the  constant  boom 
of  the  winter  waves.  Off  shore,  in  the  long 
curves  of  the  bay,  lie  a  hundred  islands ;  some 
fair  and  fertile,  tiny  continents  in  themselves ; 
others  bare  and  bleak,  mere  points  in  the 
watery  chaos.  The  mainland  is  deeply  in 
dented  with  shady  creeks  and  shallow  inlets ; 
on  the  low  marshes  grows  a  plentiful  crop  of 
salt  hay,  while  the  higher  shores  are  fringed 
to  the  water's  edge  by  pines  and  beeches 
whose  leaves  drop  into  the  tide.  The  farmer 
mows  his  meadows  far  down  to  the  pebbly 
strand  or  the  ragged  rocks,  and  the  salty 
odors  of  the  ocean  mingle  with  the  fragrance  of 
the  hay-cocks  and  the  bay-bushes.  The  swish 
of  the  quieter  waves  is  indistinguishable  from 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  99 

the  soft  rush  of  the  air  through  the  odorous 
needles  of  the  pine ;  and  the  atmosphere  which 
at  dawn  was  thick  with  fog  shines  at  noonday 
with  a  stereoscopically  clear  but  not  heat- 
giving  glare.  August  is  June  in  that  sweet 
climate,  but  a  June  that  may  relapse  into 
memories  of  April  or  anticipate  the  chill  of 
October.  The  cow-bell  tinkles  in  accord  with 
the  faint  sound  of  the  bell-buoy  at  the  edge 
of  the  channel;  and  the  lighthouse  beyond 
the  abandoned  fort  welcomes  the  fees  of  the 
vacation  pedestrian  with  the  same  zeal  with 
which  it  flares  its  warning  into  the  straining 
eyes  of  the  weary  sailor  as  he  works  his  way 
into  port. 

It  was  more  than  a  year  after  Amoret  met 
Rodney  on  the  hill  that  she  stood,  once  more 
alone,  on  the  cliff  just  north  of  the  light,  and 
looked  out  to  sea.  It  was  cool  but  not  cold, 
warm  but  not  hot;  wild  roses  and  half-dried 
fern-bushes  were  her  pleasant  neighbors,  — 
indeed,  the  only  neighbors  save  a  ruminant 
cow  that  stood  in  sleepy  silence  on  the  grassy 
parapet  of  the  disused  breastwork.  To  Amo 
ret,  nature  was  always  a  friend  and  companion, 
a  mirror  and  a  mentor.  And  now  —  save  for 
one  unrecognized  and  unconfessed  undertone 
—  the  intense  local  atmosphere  pervaded  her 
very  being  with  a  sense  of  which  some  deep 


ioo         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

inner  content  was  the  only  perceptible  thing. 
Yesterday,  to-day,  and  to-morrow  were  one, 
and  all  were  good;  the  time  and  the  scene 
made  her  so  much  in  love  with  life  that  she 
was  perfectly  willing  to  die,  knowing  that  she 
could  not  lose  herself  in  what  the  world  calls 
death.  What  though  a  rose-leaf  fell,  dis 
lodged  by  the  sluggish  breeze,  and  made  its 
final  little  journey  to  earth?  Was  the  lapsing 
wave  troubled  that  it  could  never  be  its  own 
self  again  in  the  multiplying  years?  Nowhere 
else  does  the  eternal  in  the  transient  so  per 
vade  the  mind  as  beside  the  hundred-tinted, 
the  thousand-voiced  ocean.  "  All  is,"  it  seems 
to  say. 

Winter  had  slowly  melted  into  spring,  and 
down  in  the  valley  the  stumpy  little  willows, 
which  were  shorn  of  their  beauty  last  year 
that  its  dainty  yellow  might  be  blackened  into 
charcoal,  saw  their  ugly,  despoiled  selves  in 
the  tiny  two-foot  stream  that  ran  in  and  out 
amongst  them,  trying,  with  its  soothing  chat 
ter,  to  console  them  for  the  pitiful  picture  its 
honest  little  bosom  so  plainly  showed.  So 
their  brightening  stems  and  soft  new  catkins 
waved  the  banners  of  the  season  of  resurrec 
tion  in  the  dawn  of  a  northern  summer. 

A  temporary  change  had  come  over  the  lit 
tle  household  above  the  bookstore.  Amoret 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  101 

was  twenty,  and  had  twenty  ambitions;  her 
tireless  patience  in  that  most  fretting  of  tasks, 
the  music  teacher's,  could  not  make  many 
dollars,  what  with  the  meagre  rates  of  pay 
ment  then  in  vogue  in  provincial  towns ;  while 
the  old  man's  business  across  the  counter  was 
plainly  getting  slenderer.  Respectability  must 
increasingly  make  that  most  pathetic  of  strug 
gles,  —  a  downhill  fight  with  poverty.  A  bus 
tling  rival  across  the  way  had  rented  a  shop, 
put  in  a  plate-glass  window  with  never  a  wooden 
shutter  at  night,  and  filled  it  with  gaudy  pict 
ures  and  toys,  trashy  Saturday  weeklies  that 
purveyed  cheap  fiction  to  sewing-girls,  and 
even  the  horrible  sheets  that  hebdomadally 
displayed  lurid  representations  of  prize-fights, 
robberies,  and  assassinated  females.  Into  the 
sale  of  this  wretched  "  literature  "  Mr.  Welby 
could  not  go ;  to  him  his  traffic  was  a  matter 
of  conscience,  and  he  half  despaired  of  the 
republic  when  he  reflected  that  the  younger 
part  of  Bellwood  was  actually  patronizing  his 
new  neighbor,  and  ignoring  the  old  publishing- 
house  of  half  a  century's  standing.  It  was  not 
the  loss  of  the  poor  little  money  that  vexed 
him ;  it  was  the  possible  flitting  of  the  self- 
respect  of  the  ancient  community  that  he  had 
served  for  a  lifetime,  as  boy  and  man,  and 
quietly  loved. 


IO2         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

Meanwhile  his  best  patron  died  ;  the  value 
of  the  plentiful  first  editions  on  his  shelves  was 
as  yet  undreamed  of;  and  Amoret,  with  more 
regrets  and  more  quavers  than  she  let  her 
grandfather  know,  made  up  her  mind  to  earn 
her  own  living  and  send  something  home  to 
Bellwood.  Flat  amazement  and  definite  de 
nial  gradually  yielded  to  her  resolution  and 
common-sense.  A  second  cousin  in  the  city 
by  the  island-dotted  bay  offered  her  a  home 
and  a  chance  to  teach  music  and  literature  in 
her  eminently  respectable  and  fairly  successful 
school  for  girls ;  and  still  another  ancient  rela 
tive,  lame,  kindly,  and  efficient,  was  tempora 
rily  installed  as  Mr.  Welby's  housekeeper.  So 
Amoret  began  to  try  to  show  the  world  that  it 
ought  to  give  her  some  few  dollars  in  return 
for  various  large  ideas  concerning  Tennyson 
and  Beethoven.  What  other  exchange  could 
she  ask?  A  woman  could  hardly  preach  or 
plead;  authorship  was  uncertain,  and  day- 
labor  hard  on  one's  back.  Teaching  and 
housekeeping  were  almost  all  that  were  left 
to  think  of. 

The  parting  was  hard  enough,  for  all  that 
Amoret  had  cheerily  said  about  the  trifle  of 
sixty  miles,  a  monthly  run  up  the  river,  a 
letter  every  Sunday,  and  the  nearness  of  the 
telegraph  office  to  the  old  book-store.  But 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  103 

there  would,  at  any  rate,  be  no  woes  of  the 
uncertain  sort  to  encounter;  Cousin  Lodema 
Tetley  was  too  good  and  too  self-respecting, 
albeit  a  little  cold,  to  permit  Amoret  to  en 
dure  any  Bronte  experiences  in  her  new  posi 
tion  ;  and  she  rose  to  a  state  almost  of 
cheerfulness  —  just  as  she  got  on  the  train  and 
left  the  poor  old  philosopher  disconsolate  on 
the  platform — by  the  thought  that  if  this 
scheme  failed  she  would  come  straight  home, 
contract  the  book-store  into  half  its  quarters, 
take  possession  of  the  other  half  herself, 
astonish  Bellwood  with  millinery  such  as  it 
never  dreamed  of,  and  quit  teaching  forever. 
Amoret  knew  that  she  had  taste  and  tact 
enough  to  make  her  living  as  a  milliner,  if 
worse  came  to  worse.  Her  bonnets  and  hats 
and  draperies  were  the  prettiest  she  knew  of; 
she  had  deftly  designed  the  headgear  of  many 
an  impecunious  or  tasteless  friend,  getting 
something  out  of  nothing  in  a  marvellous 
way ;  and  she  grimly  felt  that  she  would  yet 
make  people  pay  for  this  sort  of  thing,  rather 
than  starve  or  see  Mr.  Welby's  thin  face  get  to 
look  worried  in  its  old  age.  Indeed,  her  will 
ingness  to  work  was  catholic.  Two  avenues  of 
financial  gain,  however,  she  regarded  as  per 
manently  closed,  —  stealing  and  keeping 
boarders.  A  teacher  may  be  patronized  or 


IO4         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

dismissed  by  the  community ;  but  a  milliner, 
with  strong  ideas  and  a  hundred  dollars  ahead, 
has  that  community  at  its  mercy.  And  then, 
by  and  by,  The  Philosophy  of  Life  and  her 
own  book  of  poems  could  be  published  from 
the  proceeds,  —  mammon  should  serve  the 
muses  !  All  this  was  laughingly  whispered  by 
the  poet  to  the  philosopher  through  the  car- 
window,  just  before  the  train  left  the  station 
and  began  to  pass  the  familiar  objects  with  an 
increasing  speed  that  finally  rose  to  an  average 
of  no  less  than  twenty-five  miles  an  hour. 

Miss  Tetley's  school  occupied  a  great  square 
house  on  the  aristocratic  street  of  the  seaport 
city,  just  where  the  thoroughfare  began  to 
slope  down  to  the  wharves  and  the  harbor.  It 
had  been  built  in  the  days  of  the  merchant 
princes,  before  the  Embargo.  Above  its  third 
high  wooden  story  the  roof  was  bordered  by 
a  heavy  railing,  reproducing  in  little  the  clas 
sical  fashion  of  the  fence  whose  partially  de 
cayed  urn-topped  wooden  pillars  surrounded 
the  generous  yard.  The  window-glass  was  of 
the  largest  size  purchasable  in  1800;  the  front 
door  was  embellished  by  an  enormous  brass 
knocker,  still  of  use  because  of  the  habitual 
incertitude  of  the  adjoining  bell-wire;  while 
within  the  spacious  hall  and  generous  rooms 
of  the  mansion  were  the  mahogany  chairs, 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  105 

the  majestic  but  impracticable  sofas,  the  locked 
book-cases,  and  the  silver  candlesticks  of  the 
date  when  the  establishment  was  set  up.  Over 
the  carved  and  white  painted  mantel  of  the 
parlor  hung  a  portrait  of  Sir  William  Pep- 
perell,  the  lurid  hue  of  whose  generous 
cheeks  matched  that  of  his  equally  generous 
waistcoat. 

The  house  was  deliciously  cool  in  summer, 
never  thoroughly  warmed  in  winter,  and  dis 
tinctly  melancholy  in  rainy  weather,  when, 
like  some  people,  it  radiated  an  air  of  respect 
able  discomfort.  But  Amoret  was  by  no 
means  lonesome  in  her  new  habitation.  Aside 
from  her  own  soul  and  the  friendly  companion 
ship  of  birds,  flowers,  and  hills,  she  had  never 
known  of  any  environment  save  that  of  deca 
dent  respectability.  In  that  she  slept  and  ate ; 
but  in  Nature  and  in  the  cool  corners  of  her 
own  aloof  personality  was  her  real  existence. 
Indeed,  the  distinctly  and  sometimes  power 
fully  marine  atmosphere  of  the  bay  city,  with 
its  morning  fogs  and  its  afternoon  whiffs  from 
the  shallow  coves  to  the  westward,  seemed 
only  to  intensify  that  effect  of  ancient  quietude, 
of  severance  from  things  definitely  new  or 
modern,  in  which  her  life  had  been  spent. 
The  shifting  sea,  after  all,  appears  more  change 
less  than  the  immovable  mountains  of  the 


io6         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

cloud-swept  inner  country,  and  is  better  able 
to  make  to-day  seem  a  long  time  ago. 

In  Miss  Tetley's  school  Amoret's  duties  had 
begun  in  the  spring,  nor  had  they  ceased  when 
the  summer  term  closed  at  its  old-fashioned 
July  date.  The  school  was  a  successful  one, 
but  while  mere  prosperity  always  seemed  to 
Amoret  rather  vulgar,  she  could  not  object  to 
the  quiet  and  decorous  way  in  which  Miss 
Tetley's  twenty  boarders  and  sixty  day  schol 
ars  paid  their  goodly  moneys  for  instruction 
that  was  by  no  means  superficial.  Miss  Tet 
ley's  brain  and  birth  and  tact  were  alike  un 
questionable,  and  she  knew  it,  and  knew  that 
others  knew  it ;  therefore  the  dignified  transfer 
of  accomplishments  for  dollars  hurt  nobody's 
pride,  and  distinctly  increased  the  sum-total  of 
self-satisfaction  in  the  community.  It  may  be 
doubted  whether  the  world  can  show  a  higher 
average  of  civilization  than  that  of  the  strip  of 
seacoast  from  the  Penobscot  to  the  Hudson; 
but  it  is  no  matter  of  doubt  that  the  best  repre 
sentative  of  that  civilization  is  the  New  Eng 
land  woman  over  thirty  years  of  age.  That 
Miss  Tetley  was  of  such  maturity  nobody 
questioned. 

To  Amoret  was  assigned  the  duty  of  teach 
ing  rhetoric,  English  literature,  and  piano- 
playing;  an  old  German,  who  came  in  three 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  107 

times  a  week,  took  charge  of  vocal  music. 
Her  success  was  instantaneous,  though  it  had 
been  seriously  questioned  before  her  arrival 
from  the  vague  region  known  as  "  up  the 
river."  The  girls,  with  the  deferential  and 
unjealous  adoration  they  often  bestow  upon 
older  persons  of  their  own  sex,  at  once  declared 
her  ravishingly  beautiful ;  nor  could  there  be 
any  question  as  to  the  knowledge  of  solecisms, 
of  Kubla  Khan,  or  of  counterpoint  possessed 
by  one  who  dressed  with  such  divine  simplic 
ity  that  you  never  could  tell  how  it  was  done, 
though  you  looked  at  her  for  the  entire  forty- 
four  minutes  when  you  were  not  reciting. 
Thus,  though  the  tale  of  Amoret's  toils  as 
teacher  would  be  more  romantic  if  adorned 
by  accounts  of  trials  and  persecutions  wrought 
by  employer  and  scholar  on  a  sensitive  soul, 
she  was  fortunate  from  the  start,  and  there 
is  nothing  more  to  say. 

Indeed,  Amoret  was  in  no  true  sense  sensi 
tive.  If  anything  displeased  her,  she  wished 
to  avoid  it  forever ;  if  she  could  not,  she  made 
it  dwell  in  the  suburbs  of  her  good  pleasure, 
and  consoled  herself  with  her  inner  resources 
and  her  next  outing. 

So  spring  had  become  summer ;  and  Amoret, 
with  some  money  in  her  purse  and  some  mem 
ories  of  success  in  her  head,  had  made  the  first 


io8         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

of  her  little  visits  to  the  old  home,  finding 
Grandfather  Welby  still  lonesome,  but  more 
industrious  than  ever  in  the  small  affairs  of  the 
venerable  shop,  and  happier  than  of  yore  in 
the  accumulation  of  notes  for  the  great  work. 
Indeed,  he  had  taken  large  though  theoretically 
melancholy  satisfaction  in  making  some  data 
of  his  recent  regrets  for  the  loss  of  Amoret, 
thus : — 

Absence  is  true  presence ;  we  think  of  people  but 
when  they  are  out  of  sight. 

Experience  comes  high,  but  it  pays. 

Three  things  show  an  infinite  variety  in  a  changeless 
unity :  the  sea,  the  sky,  and  woman's  love. 

Or,  in  unconscious  egotism,  after  such  en 
tries  as  these  last: — 

The  author  turns  for  his  readers  the  leaves  of  the 
book  of  his  brain. 

He  meditated  somewhat  more  than  usual,  it 
is  true,  on  death ;  and  came  to  a  newly  realized 
sense  that  he  was  getting  to  be  a  tolerably  old 
man.  Of  his  demise  and  its  consequences  he 
had  no  real  fear  in  any  case.  Being  Amoret's 
grandfather,  he  would  have  been  ashamed  to 
show  it.  Indeed,  in  her  absence  he  made  to  a 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  109 

still  more  ancient  contemporary  one  slightly 
vicious  remark  which  he  would  hardly  have 
ventured  to  utter  to  her  of  whose  clear  spiritual 
insight  he  stood  somewhat  in  awe.  "  I  never 
asked  to  be  born,"  said  he ;  "I  have  tried  to 
live  a  decent  life ;  and  God  is  as  much  respon 
sible  for  my  getting  out  as  for  my  coming 
in." 

"  Yes,"  replied  old  Hendrickson,  the  grocer ; 
"  but  I  'm  glad  to  have  had  my  chance." 
When  Mr.  Welby  got  back  to  his  desk  he 
was  a  little  ashamed  of  his  seeming  cynicism, 
and  thought  Hendrickson  had  the  better  of 
the  colloquy,  until,  re-reading  one  of  his  own 
manuscript  dicta,  he  reflected  that  his  old 
friend  had  probably  got  his  idea  from  himself. 
As  far  as  death  went,  Mr.  Welby's  chief  regrets 
were  two :  first,  that  the  world  might  crowd 
Amoret;  second,  and  more  selfish  and  per 
sonal,  the  thought  that  he  must  leave  his  few 
pet  old  books  in  the  corner  that  were  not  for 
sale.  From  this  mood  came  the  entry,  dashed 
down  in  a  sort  of  defiance  of  the  fact  that  it 
was  unaxiomatically  diffuse  in  its  wording,  and 
not  original  at  that :  — 

Art  is  long,  but  the  book-lover's  time  is  fleeting ; 
as  he  passes  the  shelf  and  furtively  pats  his  loved 
volumes  there  comes  a  whisper  in  a  drear  corner  of 
his  brain  :  "  Nunc  mihi,  mox  aliis." 


no         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

Indeed,  in  one  of  these  days  of  blueness  the 
philospher  certainly  twitted  on  facts  when  he 
recorded  the  observation :  — 

Death  rids  us,  sooner  or  later,  of  many  whom  we 
dislike ;  but  it  also,  unluckily,  takes  us  out  of  the  way 
of  some  who  dislike  us. 

All  this  cynicism,  however,  was  but  skin- 
deep  ;  it  did  not  permeate  his  being  more  than 
does  the  pleasant-sour  tang  of  that  honest 
fruit,  the  bellflower  apple.  In  his  real  self 
Thomas  Welby  was  a  sweet  old  sunny  soul ; 
but  sweetness  is  not  insipidity,  and  sunshine 
would  be  naught  without  shadow.  Perhaps, 
however,  he  never  reached  a  nobler  height  of 
altruism  than  when  he  came  to  say —  and  even 
half  to  believe :  — 

Gathering  books  is  good,  but  scattering  them  is 
better :  to  each  reader  his  chosen  few. 

Amoret's  run  to  Bellwood  could  not  be 
prolonged  to  any  considerable  time,  for  her 
stately  employer  intimated,  in  a  way  that 
might  be  interpreted  as  a  command,  that  she 
could  return  if  she  chose,  and  spend  the  va 
cation  in  superintending  the  reading  and  the 
French  of  a  few  ladies,  beyond  "  school  age," 
summering  in  the  adjoining  coast  village, 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  1 1 1 

wherein  Miss  Tetley  herself  had  a  modest 
cottage.  This  suggestion  meant  an  additional 
stipend  which  Amoret  could  not  afford  to 
lose;  and  since  all  her  absences  from  Bell- 
wood  were  for  financial  reasons,  she  felt  that 
she  had  no  right  to  say  no ;  for  things  in  her 
grandfather's  simple  domestic  establishment 
were  going  well  enough,  and  in  the  book-shop 
no  worse  than  usual.  But  the  week  at  home 
had  certainly  been  pleasant;  the  villagers 
showed  the  increased  respect  they  felt  for 
one  reputed  to  be  getting  good  wages  in  the 
State  metropolis ;  and  her  visit  was  dignified 
by  the  actual  production,  after  all  the  years, 
of  the  veritable  volume  of  The  Philosophy  of 
Life,  from  which  the  dear  old  sage  read  a  few 
entries  with  a  combination  of  modesty  and 
didacticism,  of  maidenliness  and  sagesse,  that 
made  Amoret  love  him  better  than  ever.  "  You 
can  not,"  she  exclaimed  with  vocal  italicization, 
"  love  what  you  don't  respect  unless  the  ele 
ment  of  pity  creeps  in,  and  that 's  the  way  you 
love  a  bird  :  you  patronize  it.  I  'm  glad,  dear 
granddaddy,  that  I  don't  have  to  pretend  to 
love  you  just  because  you  're  a  relative ;  that 's 
the  dreariest  lie  in  the  world." 

So  it  was  that,  after  her  return,  Amoret 
found  herself,  for  the  first  time  in  her  life,  a 
seaside  summerer,  with  two  months  more  of  the 


ii2         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

green  ocean  as  her  recreation,  and  two  months 
more  of  fat-handed  women  as  her  duty.  And 
the  day  when  she  stood  alone  on  the  cliff — 
like  a  bright  statue  of  eternal-womanly  above 
the  perennial  surge  —  she  had  turned  her  back 
upon  Miss  Lodema,  the  personages  whose 
brains  she  was  expected  to  veneer,  and  all  the 
rest  of  the  cottagers,  in  order  to  have  one 
whole  long  day  all  by  herself.  She  was  still, 
in  essentials,  the  little  girl  of  the  graveyard ; 
she  must  withdraw,  now  and  then,  from  "  man 
with  his  wasty  ways,"  and  live  for  a  few  hours 
with  her  heart-beats  for  companion  and  the 
butterflies  and  the  grasses  for  teachers.  Nor 
was  the  change  abrupt  from  the  graves  of  her 
girlhood  to  the  waves  of  to-day :  each  was  in 
stinct  with  life  in  a  sense  not  true  of  the  crowds 
on  the  city  sidewalk. 

Clambering  over  the  earthworks,  with  their 
huge  semi-circular  foundations  for  cannon  that 
never  fired  a  shot,  Amoret  left  the  cows  to 
their  unaesthetic  nibbles  earthward  and  stupid 
blinks  seaward,  and  picked  her  way  to  a  crevice, 
half  down  the  cliff,  which  she  had  already  made 
a  favorite  seat.  A  little  piece  of  driftwood 
formed  a  good  bottom  for  the  chair ;  the  rocks 
were  so  shaped  as  to  make  a  back,  while  im 
mediately  in  front  jutted  an  irregular  up-slop 
ing  plane  of  weather-seamed  stone,  surrounded 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  113 

at  every  high  tide,  but  easily  accessible  at  low 
water.  This  rock-slope  terminated  in  a  point 
that  got  splashed  by  the  more  ambitious  waves 
when  wind  and  tide  were  right,  —  a  point  that 
Amoret  christened  the  Pope's  Nose,  accord 
ing  to  a  habit  she  had  never  outgrown.  From 
her  earliest  childhood  a  certain  personality  had 
seemed  to  her  to  inhere  in  half  the  objects  she 
saw  —  houses  had  characters  of  their  own,  win 
dows  looked  like  faces,  chimneys  were  solemn, 
hills  were  meditative,  brooks  talked  to  them 
selves,  rivers  were  untrustworthy,  roads  beck 
oned,  and  trees,  if  less  than  human,  were  more 
than  animal.  As  for  the  ocean,  it  was  the  uni 
versal  solvent,  the  catholic  language,  whisper 
ing  some  of  the  secrets  of  eternity.  Yet  if  it 
was  the  cathedral  of  reason  in  this  unsuper- 
stitious  age,  why  not  adorn  its  edges  with  gar 
goyles  and  sportive  sculptures?  Nature  fur 
nished  the  decorative  carvings,  she  would  give 
the  names. 

Somehow,  by  the  sea,  one  can  do  nothing, 
that  is  to  say  everything,  for  hours  and  hours 
without  weariness  or  satiety.  If  nature  does 
not  bore  herself  as  man  does,  it  is  because  she 
fills  her  round  of  daily  tasks  without  any  hate 
ful  set  of  rules,  nor  does  she  ever  look  at  a 
watch  or  a  calendar.  Some  days,  such  as  this 
of  Amoret's  in  her  seat  under  the  cliff,  the  soul 
8 


H4         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

goes  on  and  on  in  the  unmethodical  progres- 
siveness,  the  irregular  unity,  of  nature  herself. 
What  Amoret  began  to  think  of  she  could 
not  tell  any  more  than  the  bay-bushes  and  ferns 
over  her  head ;  she  merely  kept  on  like  them, 
and  in  the  same  way.  Maybe  they  knew  more 
than  she  did,  for  they  did  not  quarrel  with  their 
environment  or  their  time  of  being,  and  when 
they  died  they  died.  Perhaps  they  knew  they 
were  luckier  than  their  fellows  a  mile  inland, 
but  perhaps  they  did  n't.  Plants  have  to  suffer, 
but  so  do  minerals  ;  the  wave  eats  the  cliff, 
and  then  itself  evaporates.  Suffering  is  change, 
and  change  is  life;  indeed,  there  is  a  sort  of 
likeness  between  force  and  existence.  But 
force  never  makes  an  individual,  and  one  single 
true  vitality,  whatever  it  is,  has  a  character  that 
no  amount  of  mere  activity  can  possess.  We 
know  it,  and  so  does  the  lower  animal,  when 
we  look  each  other  straight  in  the  eye.  It  is 
the  oneness  of  the  soul  for  which  we  two  are 
searching  in  that  look;  number  or  fewness 
of  volts  or  kilos  does  not  form  a  soul.  So 
Homer  and  the  Edda-writers  used  to  make  a 
brook  into  a  little  divinity,  and  a  man  into  a 
big  one,  and  think  they  had  settled  it  all. 
Their  gods  and  goddesses  were  rather  meaner 
than  common  folks;  but  what  of  it?  We  have 
to  make  more  excuses  nowadays  for  presidents 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  115 

and  princes  than  for  sewing-women  or  black 
smiths.  So  Amoret  thought,  and  she  went  on 
and  on,  — 

"  Dear  me,  what  a  lovely  curve  that  gull 
made  as  he  swooped  between  the  schooner 
and  the  island !  What  fun  it  must  be  to  fly ! 
Poor  things,  we  can't  boast,  as  long  as  we  can't 
keep  ourselves  one  minute  one  inch  above  the 
earth  by  willing  it.  Gulls  and  fish-hawks  can 
see  better  than  we;  dirty  bats,  too,  for  that 
matter.  Everything  can  do  something  better 
than  anything  else  can.  A  dog  can  run  faster 
than  Chaucer,  smell  a  world  Shakespeare  never 
knew,  and  crunch  a  bone  that  would  tax  the 
tooth  of  time.  Oh !  that  was  the  first  splash 
on  the  Pope's  Nose.  What  a  lazy,  tricky  whirl 
pool  out  over  that  sunken  ledge !  I  wonder 
whether  I  'd  rather  be  drowned  or  slowly  swal 
lowed  in  a  quicksand.  One  would  have  time 
enough  for  a  death-bed  repentance  in  the  lat 
ter  case.  Indians  used  to  bury  each  other  in 
the  sand  up  to  the  neck,  over  night,  for  small 
pox,  —  or  did  they  ever  have  the  small 
pox? —  and  once  the  foxes  came  and  ate  off 
the  heads  of  two  or  three.  I  suppose  death 
stared  them  in  the  face.  What  would  folks 
think  of  us  if  we  said  everything  we  think ! 
How  easy  it  is  for  us  to  philosophize  when 
we  are  happy  ourselves?  What  was  it  grandpa 


1 1 6         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

was  saying  the  other  day?  —  Severity  is  easily 
endurable  when  it  falls  on  somebody  else.  But 
I  'm  sure  I  'm  sorry  enough  for  everything. 
Once  when  I  was  a  little  girl  I  waked  up  with 
my  face  wet  with  tears,  and  when  I  had  cried 
for  an  hour,  and  grandpa  asked  what  was  the 
matter,  I  said,  '  the  sins  of  the  world.'  I  must 
have  gone  to  church  the  day  before. 

"  That  swirl  over  the  rock  reminds  me  of  the 
time  when  I  had  to  drown  a  poor  little  kitten 
I  could  n't  find  a  mother  for,  or  make  drink 
milk.  The  mystery  of  death !  We  don't 
know  much  more,  after  all,  than  the  monkey 
some  one  told  me  of,  that  was  so  puzzled  when 
he  closed  his  paw  and  accidentally  killed  a  fly 
he  had  been  watching  therein ;  then  he  handed 
it  to  a  by-standing  woman,  with  a  pathetic 
look  in  his  simian  eye,  as  much  as  to  say: 
'  Tell  me  about  that  life  that  is  n't ;  where  is  it 
now?'  The  day  I  drowned  the  kitten  was  the 
first  time  I  ever  read  the  line  '  Our  little  life 
is  rounded  with  a  sleep.'  Anybody  could 
have  said  that ;  I  believe  one  is  as  good  a  poet 
as  another,  if  he  spoke  out;  and  thinking  is 
better  than  speaking.  The  only  trouble  is 
that  the  old  cow  up  there  looks  as  though  she 
had  deeper  thoughts  than  I  do.  Stagnation 
is  n't  thought ;  neither  is  buzzy  activity,  for 
that  matter.  Thinking  and  doing  are  the  left 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  117 

hand  and  the  right,  —  might  put  that  into 
shape  and  give  it  to  grandpa  for  his  book,  — or 
they  're  the  brain  and  the  hand.  Most  people 
have  hands  and  no  brains;  some  have  brains 
and  no  hands. 

"  Oh  !  there  's  a  butterfly  in  the  surf,  — just 
like  a  soul  caught  and  whirled  to  its  fate  by 
this  great  rolling  world  ;  I  wonder  whether  we 
ought  to  be  sorrier  for  the  butterfly  or  the  surf. 

"  I  wish  we  did  n't  have  backs ;  there,  that 's 
more  comfortable.  I  wonder  why  these  off 
shore  fishermen  like  to  row  face-forward ;  that 
man  has  to  sit  so,  to  steer,  and  manage  his 
sail.  How  much  has  he  caught?  Is  he  going 
home  to  his  wife?  I  hope  he'll  be  good  to 
her.  Some  of  these  common  folks  get  a  good 
deal  of  comfort  out  of  being  married.  There 
can't  be  much  of  the  ideal  about  it,  but  at  least 
there  is  a  sort  of  humdrum  friendship,  while  it 
lasts ;  and  then  she  dies  and  he  marries  again. 
Two  things  are  sure  in  this  world :  death  and 
second  marriages.  But  I  'd  rather  be  a  good 
friend  than  a  poor  lover.  I  would  have  to  love 
anybody — man  or  woman  —  ever  so  much  to 
endure  him  at  all,  every  day,  year  after  year ; 
but  if  I  did,  it  would  be  because  I  really  liked 
him,  and  liked  to  be  with  him.  And  that,  if 
you  mean  twenty  years  together,  come  weal 
come  woe,  is  friendship,  and  friendship  is  love. 


1 1 8  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

The  friend  of  God:  what  a  lot  God  must 
know !  his  friendship  would  be  worth  while. 
I  wonder  if  anybody  loves  Mr.  Morland,  and 
he  loves  anybody,  —  you  can't  forget  his  face, 
any  way. 

"  This  is  getting  rather  warm,  but  the  breeze 
is  cool.  What  a  perfect  smell !  I  don't  see 
why  smelling  is  n't  as  legitimate  as  seeing. 
Who  was  it  that  said  he  wanted  to  die  to 
escape  the  tyranny  of  the  three  dimensions? 
I  suppose  if  I  made  that  remark  to  Miss  Mor- 
fax  to-morrow  morning  it  would  be  about  as 
intelligible  as  the  Russian  she  says  she  is  'just 
crazy  to  learn.'  She  'd  be  crazy  before  she 
got  it  learned.  What  fun  it  will  be  just  after 
we  die !  out  of  space,  out  of  time,  sans  teeth, 
sans  everything,  without  the  vexation  of  our 
bodies.  That  is  like  what  I  heard  Mr.  Mor 
land  say  to  Mrs.  Catherwood  at  the  reception. 
How  pretty  she  is,  for  a  widow.  Why 
shouldn't  widows  be  pretty?  they  ought  to 
have  got  more  out  of  life  than  the  rest  of  us. 
'  Does  n't  it  make  you  shiver  to  think  of  dying, 
Mr.  Morland?'  said  she;  'to  think  of  going 
all  alone  you  don't  know  where?'  And  Mr. 
Morland  turned  his  face  down  to  hers  with  a 
far-away  look  —  he  is  taller  than  most  of  us  — 
and  his  only  words  were :  '  No  one  can  be  more 
lonely  in  the  next  world  than  in  this;  our  own 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  119 

bodies  are  far  outside  our  real  selves.'  I  don't 
think  Mrs.  Catherwood  understood  him;  she 
merely  flashed  her  blue  eyes,  with  a  little 
smile,  and  said  '  Oh,  Mr.  Morland !  '  which 
might  mean  anything.  I  never  saw  anybody 
just  like  him  ;  he  seems  a  poet  out  of  a  story 
book,  or  an  old-time,  gentle  knight  strayed 
into  our  days,  a  sort  of  womanly  man  or  manly 
woman  —  what  is  the  difference?  At  any  rate, 
I  am  glad  he  is  he,  if  I  never  see  him  again ; 
there  are  so  many  common-place  people  in 
the  world  that  one  likes  to  meet  somebody 
that  is  different.  I  am  sure  he  is  different. 
He  reminds  me  a  little  of  Robert,  for  the  very 
reason  that  he  is  so  unlike  him  ;  he  has  n't 
Robert's  dash  and  fire  and  superficial  foolish 
ness.  Mind  and  not  body  —  imagine  Robert's 
making  such  a  remark  as  that !  " 

Amoret  left  her  rocky  perch,  went  and 
picked  a  few  leaves  of  bay  and  fern,  crushed 
them  in  her  fingers  for  the  fragrance,  sat  down 
in  the  afternoon  shade  east  of  the  fort,  and 
looked  —  one  would  have  said  —  far  out  to 
sea ;  but  she  was  really  staring  at  a  new  figure 
on  the  horizon  of  life. 

Henry  Morland  was  a  man  at  whom  street- 
passers  riot  infrequently  gave  a  second  glance  ; 
a  fact  which  he  well  knew,  while  never  giving 
the  slightest  hint  of  the  knowledge.  But  his 


1 20          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

notableness  was  very  unlike  Rodney's.  If 
Amoret  had  thought  of  him  and  Rodney  in  the 
same  mood,  it  was,  as  she  said  to  herself,  but 
for  contrast ;  for  of  Rodney's  radiant  animal 
ism  Morland  had  not  a  trace.  Tall,  dark, 
thin,  he  had  seemed  to  Amoret,  on  first  view, 
to  personate  mind  in  a  material  world.  His 
rather  low  but  broad  forehead  was  surmounted 
and  surrounded  by  black  hair.  The  eyes  were 
far  apart;  the  nose  not  small,  and  of  an  out 
ward  arch ;  the  lips  thin  and  delicate,  suggest 
ing  in  their  ordinary  expression  a  mood  of 
reticent  firmness  that  most  men  reserve  for 
occasions  of  some  significance ;  and  the  hands 
and  feet  like  a  Cuban's.  Perhaps  his  most 
notable  characteristic  at  first  glance  was  a 
monotonous  pallor  of  complexion,  as  of  the 
smoothness  and  softness  of  porcelain,  but 
suggesting  delicacy  of  diposition  rather  than 
any  tendency  toward  ill-health. 

Morland  and  Amoret  had  first  met  at  an 
in-door  party  late  in  the  social  season,  before 
the  summer  cessation  of  festivities.  The  two 
had  been  bestowing  upon  others  the  chit-chat 
which  neither  liked,  but  both  deemed  neces 
sary  in  the  interchange  of  superficial  civilities, 
—  a  sort  of  small  coin  of  the  market-place,  far 
outside  the  temple  of  life.  Neither  conde 
scended,  then  or  ever,  to  the  discussion  of 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  121 

thermometrical,  barometrical,  or  hygrometri- 
cal  conditions ;  but  each  was  willing  to  inquire, 
in  deferential  interest  that  did  not  pretend  to 
be  profound,  concerning  the  length  of  time 
people  had  remained  in  Harborwood,  and  the 
comparative  intensity  of  their  satisfaction  with 
the  topography  and  society  of  the  seaboard 
town. 

A  general  "  party  "  or  reception  is  an  amuse 
ment  to  the  many,  a  despair  to  the  few,  and 
an  opportunity  to  some.  Before  Morland  was 
presented  to  Amoret,  each  had  been  studying 
the  gathering  with  equal  interest,  if  from  dif 
ferent  motives.  Morland,  with  the  journal 
ist's  and  critic's  inveterate  habit  of  external 
comment,  was  quietly  noting  a  few  absurdities 
of  appearance  or  incongruities  of  dress,  and 
was  amusing  himself  with  the  thought  that 
years  dealt  indifferently  with  some  men  and 
women  who  had  seemed  old  to  him  in  his  boy 
hood  days,  nor  appeared  more  ancient  now. 
In  the  same  observant  temper  he  was  watching 
for  new  faces,  and  two  attracted  his  unexcit- 
able  notice.  One  was  that  of  a  fairly  success 
ful  novelist  from  another  city,  —  tall,  large, 
blonde,  voluble,  forty;  the  other  was  Amoret, 
who  could  lay  claim  to  none  of  these  terms. 

The  social  function  had  reached  its  middle 
stage ;  the  first  scattering  arrivals  had  been  re- 


122          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

inforced  by  rapidly  accumulating  recruits  from 
the  dressing-rooms ;   refreshments  had  not  yet 
been  served ;   and  numerous  groups  were  talk 
ing  and  laughing  in  a  roar  which,  though  en 
durable,  was  not  in  all  respects  more  agreeable 
than   the    atmosphere  of  the   rooms,   heavily 
laden  with  the  odor  of  strong  half-wilted  flow 
ers  and  miscellaneous  perfumes  from  the  toilet 
table.     Amoret  had  never  before  been  present 
at  so  large  or  so  ambitious  a  gathering;  and 
the  effect  of  her  inner  sense  of  modest  inexpe 
rience   was    to    give   her   an   external    air   of 
superiority.     Nobody  in  the  world  seems   so 
haughty  as  he  or  she  who  is  most  timid ;  a 
feebleness  at  times  almost  despairing  assumes 
the  form  of  conscious  pride  or  visible  dislike. 
Amoret's  look  that  night  was  perhaps  nothing 
more  than  her  habitual  flower-like  indifference 
to  beholders ;    rooted    in  nature,  she  instinc 
tively  turned  her  face  skyward,  not  manward ; 
but  it  was  enough  to  puzzle  Morland,  to  whom 
her  simplicity  was  a  stronger  magnet  than  the 
dominant  personality  of  the  blonde  novelist, 
though  that  popular  personage  was  one  who 
never  appeared  anywhere  without  seeming  to 
say,  "  I  am  here,"  —  she  pre-supposed  a  public, 
and  Morland  had  no  doubt  that  she  attitudin 
ized  even  at  the  desk  where  she  wrote  her 
florid  but  effective  stories  of  the  relations  be- 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  123 

tween  a  polyonomous  her  and  an  erratic  him. 
Morland  had  written  reviews  of  more  than  one 
of  her  books,  and  his  memory  now  flattered 
him  that  those  reviews  had  been  as  kindly  as 
the  novels  warranted ;  at  least  his  judgment 
had  not  been  unconsciously  warped  by  any 
anticipatory  knowledge  of  her  insistent  per 
sonality. 

After  this  little  preliminary  study  Morland 
was  sure  that  if  he  talked  with  his  fellow-author 
for  long  she  would  find  him  out,  and  turn 
the  conversation  straight  toward  her  own  ad 
vantage  as  a  future  maker  of  books;  and  so 
there  was  some  personal  desire  for  self-pres 
ervation  in  his  request  to  be  presented,  in 
stead,  to  the  dark  and  interesting  newcomer. 
The  better  part  of  the  chat  that  followed  was 
one  that  Amoret  recalled,  word  by  word,  as 
she  looked  seaward  and  unconsciously  made 
Morland  the  dream-figure  on  the  far  sky-line 
of  the  green  ocean. 

"  Miss  Wenton,"  he  had  said,  "  my  evening 
would  have  been  incomplete  without  this 
honor." 

"  One  meets  whom  one  wishes  to  meet, 
sooner  or  later,  in  this  life,"  replied  Amoret,  with 
a  pretty  turn  of  the  head  and  a  prettier  look  in 
her  eyes,  as  she  lifted  a  round  arm  and  fixed  a 
stray  little  lock  of  hair  on  the  back  of  her  head. 


124        The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

The  cryptic  reply  might  have  been  deemed 
as  light  as  Morland's  was  merely  conventional ; 
but  each  felt  some  undercurrent  of  truth  in 
his  or  her  part  of  the  little  duologue,  which 
gave  the  few  words  a  new  significance,  and 
started  the  following  conversation  far  in  ad 
vance  of  the  usual  beginning  point  of  society 
chatter.  The  king's  pawn  had  merely  moved 
two  squares  forward,  but  the  serious  play  was 
quickly  on,  and  the  queen  was  in  the  game. 
Amoret's  pleasure  in  the  talk  was  that  of  an 
innocence  so  childish  as  to  be  impenetrable, 
while  Morland's  subtle  compliments  became 
more  than  superficial  because  of  the  evident 
sincerity  of  his  interest  in  his  new  acquaint 
ance.  To  have  noticed  little  things  is  the 
most  irresistible  of  minor  flatteries ;  and  each 
had  been  watching  the  other,  —  a  fact  which 
Amoret  instinctively  concealed  and  Morland 
judiciously  made  known.  And  as  the  subse 
quent  days  went  on,  it  was  his  minute  remem 
brance  of  her  unconsidered  trifles  that  surprised 
Amoret  most,  while  Morland  was  best  pleased 
by  the  novelty  of  the  girl's  point  of  view,  and 
her  way  of  setting  forth  her  own  thoughts. 

To  Amoret,  in  her  day  by  the  sea,  there 
came  back,  accordingly,  every  detail  of  this, 
their  first  talk,  in  the  ten  minutes  before  the 
blonde  novelist  came  swooping  into  their  little 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  125 

cove-nook  of  intelligence  like  a  ferry-boat 
among  wherries,  ending  it  all  save  for  a  scant 
minute  at  parting.  They  had  spoken  of  roses 
and  violets ;  of  "  In  Memoriam,"  and  the  tire 
someness  of  standing  for  two  hours;  of  the 
waste  of  time  in  reading  daily  papers,  and  of  a 
late  concert  of  the  Mendelssohn  Quintette  Club. 
From  the  last,  to  Morland's  amazement  and 
Amoret's  delight,  the  talk  had  drifted  into  the 
deep  discussion  —  how  should  it  be  described 
in  simple  words?  —  of  the  correlation  and 
transmutation  of  the  forces  of  aesthetic  com 
munication  between  mind  and  mind :  what 
smell  and  taste  could  suggest,  and  whether  a 
symphony  could  tell  a  story  or  a  painting 
sing  a  song.  Morland  had  quoted  some  hack 
neyed  lines  on  the  subject ;  but  the  lines,  and 
he  himself,  had  been  made  commonplace  in 
his  own  mind  by  the  girl's  quick  citation  of 
Shelley's  - 

"  land 
Where  music  and  moonlight  and  feeling  are  one." 

Frivolity  and  giggle  were  all  around  them  in 
the  crowded  and  uncomfortable  room ;  but  in 
a  far  corner  these  two  chance  wanderers  in  the 
wilderness  of  inanity  had  happened  upon  a 
topic  which  each  had  often  thought  of,  but 
seldom  broached. 


126  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

"  I  suppose,"  said  Morland,  "  that  if  we 
have  any  existence  at  all  beyond  this  life,  we 
shall  have  little  need  of  the  senses  we  most 
employ  here,  and  shall  make  most  use  of  mere 
dim  feeling  between  soul  and  soul." 

"  Angelic  eyes,  and  noses,  and  tongues,  and 
fingers  and  ears  will  all  become  one  sense  of 
apprehension  then,"  said  Amoret. 

"  Don't  you  think  there  is  a  little  truth  in 
telepathy,  Miss  Wenton?"  said  Morland. 

"  I  suppose  so,"  said  she,  "  underneath  a 
great  deal  of  humbug  and  coincidence.  How 
strange  it  is  when  we  feel  that  we  Ve  been  in  a 
place  before,  and  heard  the  very  same  things 
said,  though  the  chances  are  all  against  it." 

"  And  stranger  still,"  said  Morland,  "  when 
one  knows  just  what  somebody  else  is  going 
to  say." 

"  It 's  partly,"  said  Amoret,  "  that  we  have 
so  few  ideas  and  not  many  words,  and  must 
come  back  to  the  old  things.  Don't  you 
remember  the  nursery  jingle,  — 

"  '  We  eat  and  drink  and  sleep,  and  then 
We  eat  and  drink  and  sleep  again  ? ' 

That's  all  some  folks'  life  amounts  to." 

"  I  know  it,"  said  he ;  "  but,  as  you  say, 
coincidence  hardly  accounts  for  it  all.  I  think 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  1 27 

I  feel  this  sense  more  when  talking  with  intel 
ligent  people  on  out-of-the-way  themes." 

"  Do  you  have  it  now  ?  "  said  Amoret.  "  Our 
themes  are  out-of-the-way,  I  am  sure,"  and 
as  she  looked  at  his  deep  eyes,  she  was  in 
stantly  ashamed  of  seeming  to  trifle,  —  a  tiny 
vexation  that  raised  Morland  in  her  esteem, 
and  belittled  herself  in  her  own  mind  for  a 
fortnight  afterward. 

"  I  wish  I  could  think  I  ever  had  so  full  a 
ten  minutes  before  in  some  previous  state," 
said  Morland,  with  a  pleasant  smile  ;  and  just 
then  the  impressive  novelist  descended  on  the 
pair,  and  the  hostess  brought  a  callow  col 
legian  to  present  to  Amoret.  Morland  was 
thirty-eight ;  but  Amoret,  from  babyhood,  had 
always  liked  antiquity.  It  was  an  hour  after 
ward,  in  the  hall,  when  Morland  got  a  chance 
to  say :  "  Miss  Tetley  is  a  valued  friend  of 
mine ;  I  hope  I  may  see  you,  too,  the  next 
time  I  dislocate  the  bell-wire  or  pound  the 
great  brass  knocker.  Time,  you  know,  is  good 
for  nothing  save  as  a  memory  or  a  hope ;  " 
and  the  quiet  face  was  brightened  by  a  still 
smile  that  Amoret  suddenly  compared,  in  her 
mind,  with  Robert's  old-time  laughs,  and  the 
latter  seemed  very  far  away. 

As  for  Morland's  farewell  words,  they  came 
back  to  her  again  and  again,  as  she  looked 


128  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

seaward :  "  Time  is  good  for  nothing  save  as  a 
memory  or  a  hope."  A  memory,  or  a  hope, — 
that  had  never  been  her  idea  of  the  days  and 
years;  they  had  been  one  long  and  delight 
some  procession  of  present  moments,  — •  even 
the  absence  of  her  grandfather  had  not  left  them 
empty,  and  certainly  Robert's  had  not,  though 
she  often  gave  him  a  regretful  thought,  for  all 
her  life  she  had  wished  he  was  different.  But 
now,  for  some  new  reason  that  she  could  not 
understand,  she  had  spent  half  the  afternoon 
in  thinking  about  that  chance  meeting  at  the 
party,  and  in  wondering  when  the  old  brass 
knocker  would  sound.  The  worst  of  it  was 
that  Miss  Tetley  had  almost  immediately  trans 
ferred  herself  to  the  seaside  cottage,  and  per 
haps  he  had  come  and  gone,  and  the  knocks 
had  but  echoed  through  the  emptiness  of  the 
great  square  rooms. 

The  sun  set ;  the  darkness  deepened ;  night 
shut  down ;  the  broken  cliffs  grew  black ;  and 
the  sea,  whose  roar  and  splash  had  been  com 
pany  during  the  day,  took  another  tone  and 
moaned  drearily.  Then  it  was,  the  while  the 
two  great  lights  at  the  extremities  of  the  long 
island  began  to  glow  like  huge  candlesticks  on 
either  end  of  an  altar  to  Neptune,  that  Amoret 
wrote  the  last  lines  of  a  sonnet  she  had  begun 
long  ago  in  her  river  home.  As  her  pencil 


The  Surge  of  the  Sea.  129 

closed  its  work  in  the  gloom,  and  she  turned 
to  go,  she  thought  she  was  thinking  only  of 
the  illimitable  ocean. 

AFTER   DEATH. 

When  I  forthfare  beyond  this  narrow  earth, 
With  all  its  metes  and  bounds  of  now  and  here, 
And  brooding  clouds  of  ignorance  and  fear 

That  overhung  me  on  my  day  of  birth, 

Wherethrough  the  jocund  sun's  perennial  mirth 
Has  shone  more  inly  bright  each  coming  year, 
With  some  new  glory  of  that  outer  sphere 

Where  length  and  breadth  and  height  are  little  worth, 

Then  shall  I  find  that  even  here  below 
We  guessed  the  secret  of  eternity, 
And  learned  in  years  the  yearless  mystery ; 

For  in  our  earliest  world  we  came  to  know 
The  master-lesson  and  the  riddle's  key: 
Unending  love  unending  growth  shall  be. 


130  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 


VI. 

AN   HEIR   OF  THE  AGES. 

THE  congregation  of  the  dead  awaits  the 
pilgrims  of  life,  and  the  grave  is  the 
second  cradle  of  man.  We  came  from  our 
own  and  we  go  to  our  own,  bearing  the  bur 
den  of  sins  before  our  birth,  and  borne  on  the 
wings  of  the  hopes  of  our  ancestors.  Our 
grandfathers'  faces  peer  back  from  our  mir 
rors,  and  our  very  voices  are  those  that  once 
came  from  lips  now  dust  Yet  we  shall  not 
be  damned  for  Adam's  sin,  nor  saved  by  a 
mother's  virtues. 

Man's  brain  is  most  vexed  by  the  problem 
of  self,  so  he  seeks  to  shirk  it  by  throwing  it 
on  somebody  else.  Once  it  was  laid  on  the 
priest,  now  it  falls  on  the  environment.  But  the 
old  Spanish  philosopher  summed  our  case  when 
he  said :  "  Blood  is  an  inheritance,  virtue  an 
acquisition."  Our  bodies  are  no  more  than 
the  hands  and  feet  of  the  soul.  Life  is  an 
eternal  now,  an  unending  triumph  over  death, 
if  so  we  will  make  it.  If  we  fall  away  it  is 


An  Heir  of  the  Ages.  131 

because  we  yield  hold ;  neither  God  nor  man 
may  push  us  off.  The  human  mind,  indeed, 
comprehends  neither  infinitude  nor  limitation 
of  life,  of  space,  of  time,  of  matter;  it  stag 
gers  at  the  thought  of  something,  nothing, 
self,  the  rest;  it  sometimes  calls  good  bad  and 
bad  good.  But  light  shines  on  the  origin  of 
ill  because  of  the  glory  of  freedom  and  tri 
umph  by  choice.  Mere  liberty  has  no  room 
for  God,  mere  foreordination  makes  man  a 
puppet;  we  know  there  is  a  shaping  power, 
and  we  also  know  we  are  free. 

When  Henry  Morland  was  a  boy  in  an  up- 
country  village,  however,  he  thought  there 
were  ten  compelling  fates  and  one  poor  little 
sprite  of  freedom  in  his  narrow  world.  The 
care  that  others  showed  him  seemed  a  kind  of 
immitigable  cruelty,  and  whenever,  in  boyish 
fashion,  he  resolved  to  be  his  own  be  and  do 
his  own  do,  he  seemed  forced  into  petty  and 
wayward  rebellion.  The  neighbors  said  he 
was  moody,  but  his  parents  thought  he  had 
a  strong  will,  and  were  glad  that  his  bookish 
tastes  saved  them  from  frequent  necessity  to 
"  break  "  it.  He  could  read  at  five,  by  ten  he 
knew  nearly  all  the  books  behind  the  glass 
doors  of  the  mahogany  cases,  and  at  fifteen 
the  little  town  library  in  an  upper  room  of  the 
academy  building  was  housed  in  his  own  head 


The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

as  well.  Boys  and  girls  acquire  the  reading 
habit  then  or  never;  and  little  Morland  fol 
lowed  the  fortunes  of  the  Faerie  Queene  as 
well  as  Mr.  Abbott's  Napoleon,  and  could 
locate  Inchcape  Rock  as  accurately  as  the 
Sugarloaf  of  his  own  village.  Caring  little 
for  scud,  or  prisoners'  base,  or  three  old  cat, 
or  swimming,  or  horseback  riding,  or  the  rude 
gymnasium  of  the  academy,  his  one  physical 
triumph  lay  in  his  long  legs,  which  could  run 
a  race  faster  than  those  of  any  boy  in  the 
county  town.  And  his  acquaintance,  young 
and  old,  excused  peculiarities  that  were  per 
verse,  perhaps,  but  seldom  vicious  or  sullen, 
by  saying  "  Henry  's  a  great  reader,"  as  though 
that  settled  everything. 

But  the  boy's  book-loving  tastes  had  at 
least  given  him  ability  to  compare  the  actual 
with  the  fanciful,  and  in  a  lazy  way  he  appre 
ciated  some  part  of  the  beauties  of  his  en 
vironment.  The  long  village  of  one  street, 
whence  strayed  a  few  minor  thoroughfares  at 
right  angles,  rested  on  the  top  of  a  great 
truncated  cone.  Around  the  town,  straggling 
off  into  the  eastward  meadows  in  many  an 
intricate  S  or  graceful  C,  was  the  eccentric 
little  river,  subdividing  the  hayfields  into  divers 
patterns,  and  demanding  a  log  bridge,  here 
and  there,  for  the  farmers'  ways.  In  spring 


An  Heir  of  the  Ages.  133 

the  sluggish  stream  overflowed  the  surround 
ing  acres,  and  in  the  long  winter,  save  when, 
as  usually  happened,  it  was  covered  with  snow, 
it  stretched  a  vitreous  floor  for  the  muffled 
skaters.  But  the  glory  of  Reedville  was  the 
great  irregular  line  of  mountains  to  the  west 
ward,  running  north  and  south  in  majestic 
superiority  to  the  white  steeple  of  the  Con 
gregational  church  or  the  modest  brick  tower 
of  the  academy.  In  the  morning  their  bare 
tops  caught  the  first  thin,  shivering  rod  of 
sunlight,  and  in  the  late  evening  their  dark 
contour,  like  that  of  a  row  of  huge  trans 
ported  pyramids,  shocked  and  distorted  by  an 
earthquake,  bordered  the  deepening  purple  of 
the  sky.  Most  of  the  farmers  regarded  them 
as  so  much  possibly  productive  woodland,  for 
their  eastern  sides  were  occasionally  seamed 
by  chutes  down  which  great  logs  were  slid  in 
favorable  winters ;  while  the  villagers'  daugh 
ters  viewed  them  as  huge  blueberry  pastures, 
yielding  five  cents  a  quart  or  three  by  the 
Bushel,  and  demanding  patience,  sugar,  and 
stained-handedness  in  the  doing-up.  To  young 
Morland  these  outlying  peaks  of  a  greater 
range  were  neither  the  delectable  mountains 
of  a  joyous  imagination,  nor  the  prosaic  neigh 
bors  of  an  unintelligent  mind. 

If  Henry  was  a  reader,  it  was  because  the 


1 34         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

world  of  books  was  larger  than  that  of  Reed- 
ville,  and  because  books  never  annoyed  him 
by  intrusiveness  or  misapprehension,  the  two 
great  banes  of  childhood.  To  be  misjudged 
or  wrongly  blamed,  to  be  obliged  to  make  a 
timid  explanation,  or  to  rest  in  undeserved 
though  perhaps  tacit  condemnation,  —  these 
things  make  childhood's  alleged  joyousness  a 
time  out  of  which  the  struggles  or  woes  of 
middle  life  give  a  blessed  deliverance,  for  we 
are  at  least  freed  from  the  supervision  of  offi 
cial  and  officious  inspectors  whose  knowledge 
may  or  may  not  be  greater  than  ours,  but 
whose  tastes  and  sympathies  are  surely  not 
identical  with  our  own. 

The  townspeople,  when  they  said  that  the  boy 
was  a  great  reader,  gave  the  reasons  that  his 
parents  were  such  superior  persons :  the  father, 
a  calm,  cool,  spectacled  lawyer,  who  shaved 
his  upper-lip  Sundays  and  Wednesdays  and 
sat  for  the  rest  of  the  week  in  the  little  brick 
office  at  the  farther  corner  of  the  garden ;  the 
mother,  a  mild,  timid,  flat-chested  excellence 
with  attenuated  gray  curls  over  her  ears,  two 
straight  wrinkles  all  across  her  forehead,  a 
perpetual  wonder  what  husband  thought  about 
it,  and  a  constant  worried  apprehension  lest 
something  should  happen  to  Henry.  The 
despots  are  not  all  in  mid-Asia,  and  Squire  Mor- 


An  Heir  of  the  Ages.  135 

land  ruled  in  that  most  torturous  of  tyrannies : 
a  sense  of  incertitude  as  to  his  majesty's 
pleasure  in  house  and  what  was  called  home. 
Mrs.  Morland  did  not  dream,  for  forty  years, 
that  she  came  nearest  a  sort  of  negative  hap 
piness  when  her  husband  had  left  her  and 
gone  to  sit  alone  among  his  calf-bound  law- 
books  in  the  one-story  office  and  dispense 
remunerative  equity  in  his  capacity  of  incor 
ruptible  executor  and  estate-lawyer  for  half  the 
county;  but  Henry  was  well  aware  that  his 
own  freedom  was  best  found  when  an  open 
book  lay  in  his  lap,  and  his  father  was  some 
where  else.  The  squire  never  interrupted  him 
then,  for  he  felt  that  the  boy  was  following 
the  intellectual  bent  of  the  family  far  better 
than  his  older  sister,  who,  by  the  law  of  con 
traries  one  sometimes  sees  in  this  crooked 
world,  was  the  plump  and  jolly  wife  of  a  well- 
to-do  merchant,  deemed  rather  below  her  in 
social  station,  —  and  the  mother  of  two  rollick 
ing  babies.  Everybody  had  always  said  that 
sister  Helen's  was  just  like  the  roly-poly  face 
of  her  great  grandmother,  in  the  be-capped 
painting  that  hung  at  the  turn  of  the  front 
staircase.  So  Time  wreaks  his  jocose  revenges. 
Of  course  Henry  went  to  college  in  due 
season,  after  he  had  gone  through  his  Greek 
reader  and  six  books  of  Virgil  in  the  academy. 


136         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

Fitting  for  college  and  keeping  at  the  head 
of  his  little  and  dwindling  class  was  easy 
enough,  and  as  his  instructor  was  one  of  the 
faithful  classicists  of  the  last  generation,  con 
tent  to  labor  for  a  lifetime  at  eight  hundred  a 
year  without  dreams  of  a  professorship  or  a 
higher  salary  or  a  "wider  sphere,"  the  boy 
went  well  prepared  to  the  famous  old  institu 
tion  where  his  father  had  graduated  thirty  years 
before.  If  his  mathematics  were  a  little  in 
secure,  he  knew  his  Andrews  and  Stoddard  by 
heart,  and  used  to  amuse  himself  by  giving 
elocutionary  renditions  of  the  sense  of  Dem 
osthenes,  or  delicate  scansions  of  the  more 
melodious  lines  of  Horace,  while  his  less  fa 
vored  classmates  were  almost  vanquished  by  the 
ordinary  tasks  of  preparing  a  rugged  transla 
tion,  or  adapting  Bohn  to  the  style  of  their 
own  presumed  vocabulary.  College  life  was  a 
little  hard,  at  first,  for  the  reason  that  Morland 
found  among  his  hundred  fellows  of  the  same 
year  a  dozen  who  knew  as  much  as  he,  and 
fifty  who  worked  harder ;  while,  to  his  amaze 
ment,  there  was  one  who  had  actually  read 
more  books.  Gradually,  however,  he  adjusted 
himself  to  a  condition  never  wholly  agreeable 
to  one  who  has  always  been  first  in  his  set  and 
vicinage;  and,  after  passing  through  various 
grades  of  collegiate  unpopularity  because  of 


An  Heir  of  the  Ages.  137 

alleged  reserve  or  egotism,  was  on  the  whole 
declared  to  be  a  good  fellow  and  an  unques 
tionably  bright  one.  Skimming  over  mathe 
matics  ;  getting  into  the  literature  of  Greek  and 
Latin  and  the  paradigms  of  French  and  German 
(plus  an  occasional  lyric  of  Heine)  ;  perversely 
enjoying  philosophy  and  political  economy; 
nearly  ruining  his  Commencement  standing  by 
his  frank  heresies  in  the  natural  religion  class 
room  ;  personally  liking  some  of  the  more 
reckless  collegians,  but  despising  dissipation  as 
vulgar,  Morland  was  first  and  last  a  reader. 
The  great  college  library  was  to  him  a  treas 
ury  of  gold  and  gems;  had  his  soul  been  as 
large  as  his  mind  it  would  also  have  seemed 
a  shrine,  a  paradise.  Not  even  the  excess 
ively  uninspiring  professor  of  literature  could 
diminish  his  zeal  for  books,  though  the  English 
classroom  was  to  him  the  least  attractive 
place  in  the  college;  and  the  old  instructor 
never  dreamed  that  the  dark  boy  had  read  the 
Ormulum  and  the  comedies  of  Congreve  and 
—  unlike  himself —  had  mastered  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  grammar  he  found  on  the  dusty  top 
shelf  of  the  philological  alcove. 

So  Morland's  four  years  passed  right  pleas 
antly,  and  at  Commencement  his  externally 
impassive  father,  his  tearfully  gratified  mother, 
and  his  roseate  sister  heard  him  deliver  a  really 


138         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

excellent  dissertation  on  the  influence  of  the 
Sasanian  Dynasty,  —  the  adjective  having  been 
unfamiliar  to  him  when,  six  weeks  earlier,  the 
topic  had  been  assigned  by  the  discretion  of 
the  authorities. 

What  profession  or  pursuit  should  be 
followed  by  this  new  heir  of  the  ages,  this 
green  scion  of  a  hill-town  ancestral  tree? 
Morland's  father  was  a  lawyer,  but  the  previous 
Morlands,  with  the  exception  of  a  single  shoe 
maker,  had  been  farmers  for  generations,  solid 
deacons  in  the  church  of  which  Squire  Mor- 
land  himself  was  deemed  an  important  pillar. 
That  the  squire's  nature  lacked  flexibility, 
warmth,  sympathy,  was  proof  of  its  fitness  for 
columnar  service.  In  the  maternal  line  of 
descent  there  had  been  more  irregularity,  but 
more  visible  ability,  including  that  of  several 
ministers,  one  of  whom  had  been  an  eighteenth- 
century  divine,  wit,  sermonizer,  pamphleteer, 
and  college  trustee  of  large  local  repute,  who, 
had  he  lived  in  later  times,  would  have  been 
a  social  novelist  or  an  effective  politician. 

Granting,  then,  that  the  fledgling  bachelor 
of  arts  had  inherited  hard  rectitude  from  his 
father's  line,  intellectual  ability  from  his 
mother's,  and  probably  longevity  from  both, 
what  was  he  to  do  ?  The  ministry  was  out  of 
the  question ;  medicine  had  never  entered  his 


An  Heir  of  the  Ages.  139 

mind ;  teaching  would  bring  him  too  near  to 
actual  humanity;  while  business,  since  their 
jovial  daughter's  alleged  matrimonial  deflection, 
had  been  coldly  received  by  both  his  parents. 
The  law  —  who  would  care  to  sit  in  his  father's 
fusty  office  for  fifty  years  more,  or  duplicate  it 
elsewhere  and  get  a  living  by  beating  some 
other  pettifogger  or  writing  wills  for  valetudina 
rians  who  bestowed  their  earthly  goods  with 
the  generosity  of  the  fishhawk  when  he  drops 
his  marine  spoils  beneath  the  eagle's  swoop? 
Why  not  literature,  then?  A  man  of  books 
might  surely  make  books,  or  at  least  a  reader 
could  edit  periodicals  for  others  to  read.  The 
more  Morland  thought  of  the  scheme  the  better 
he  liked  it ;  nor,  strange  to  say,  was  there  any 
opposition  at  home.  His  mother  always  said 
yes  whenever  possible,  and  it  was  not  hard  to 
get  the  assent  of  his  father,  who  had  never 
ceased  to  pride  himself  on  the  invincible  vigor 
and  unanswerable  satire  of  his  own  series  of  anti- 
abolitionist  letters  contributed  to  the  "  Surrey 
County  Democrat "  in  the  '40*3 ;  and  had 
since  felt  an  inward  assurance  that  he  could 
show  these  fellows  how  to  run  a  paper,  if  he 
had  a  mind  to. 

So  it  was  that  Morland  went  to  the  New 
England  metropolis  and  got  a  position  on  a 
daily  newspaper  at  ten  dollars  a  week,  with 


140         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

five  dollars  a  column  for  space-work  beyond  a 
certain  amount.  A  graduate  of  his  college,  on 
the  editorial  staff  of  the  paper,  who  knew  some 
thing  of  his  capabilities  and  the  quality  of  his 
penwork,  gave  him  this  brilliant  opening, 
which  he  soon  made  available  for  proving  his 
possession  of  a  more  varied  industry  than  his 
classmates  had  ever  supposed  he  possessed. 
Quartering  himself  in  a  third-story  back  bed 
room  up  on  "  boarding-house  hill,"  he  sub 
sisted  in  Washington-pie  restaurants,  kept  his 
eyes  open  in  his  walks  abroad,  and  turned  out 
miscellaneous  copy  with  a  success  that  was 
approved  by  the  city  editor,  and  ultimately 
caught  the  eye  of  the  managing  editor  himself. 
Morland  felt  that  the  best  result  of  a  college 
education  is  —  or  ought  to  be — facile  adapt 
ability  to  circumstances;  and  was  quick  to 
adjust  himself  to  his  new  environment.  He 
who,  in  his  undergraduate  days,  had  been 
thought  to  care  more  for  a  sixteenth-century 
play  than  for  a  nineteenth-century  newspaper, 
smiled  as  he  cut  out  and  pasted  daily  in  his 
rapidly  growing  but  soon  abandoned  scrap- 
book  such  varia  as  an  account  of  a  new  statue 
in  the  Public  Garden,  a  "story"  of  a  stroll 
among  the  once  aristocratic  mansions  of  the 
West  End,  a  description  of  the  funeral  of  a 
Salem  street  common-councilman,  an  inter- 


An  Heir  of  the  Ages.  14.1 

view  with  an  Irish  nationalist,  a  satirical  poem 
on  the  presidential  aspirants  of  the  other  politi 
cal  party,  and  a  review  of  a  Russian  pessimistic 
novel. 

Morland  was  now  as  near  happiness  as  he 
ever  came ;  far  from  classmates  for  whom  he 
cared  little  or  from  relatives  or  village  neigh 
bors  to  whom  he  felt  it  necessary  to  make 
explanations  of  his  point  of  view,  he  now 
could  follow  his  own  bent,  knowing  next  to 
nobody  outside  the  office,  and  finding  a  new 
zest  in  intellectual  creation,  humble  as  it  was. 
Perhaps  this  was  better  than  his  lifelong  habit 
of  mere  book  absorption.  He  had  never,  in 
deed,  been  really  unhappy;  all  his  aloofness 
from  his  quondam  associates  in  northern  New 
England  had  not  blinded  him  to  the  fact  that 
largeness  of  thought  and  freedom  of  intellec 
tual  stimulus,  in  that  keen  air,  amply  offset  the 
limitations  of  rocky  acres,  four  months  of 
snow,  and  men  and  women  with  granite  and 
ice  in  their  hearts.  He  would  not  have  ex 
changed,  if  he  could,  the  storm,  and  stress, 
and  query,  and  worry,  and  "  riz-biscuits  "  and 
scrawny  women  of  his  birth-land  for  the  placid 
and  sometimes  bovine  content  of  richer  states 
to  the  southward ;  yet  he  keenly  enjoyed, 
when  he  came  to  know  it,  the  way  in  which 
some  city  people,  even  on  Massachusetts  Bay, 


142         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

accept  things,  without  suffering  any  pangs  of 
mental  dyspepsia  or  spiritual  introspection. 

His  first  urban  year  told  against  his  health. 
It  is  not  easy  for  a  country  boy,  though  more 
athletic  than  Morland,  to  breakfast  at  noon, 
dine  at  night,  take  a  bite  at  midnight,  smoke 
irregularly,  frequent  basement  beer-saloons, 
and  endure  what  becomes  to  him  the  engross 
ing  dissipation  of  work  on  a  daily  newspaper. 
The  end  of  the  world  seems  to  come  when  the 
last  form  of  a  morning  journal  goes  to  the 
electrotyping  room  and  the  endless  coil  of  paper 
begins  to  be  fed  to  the  presses  for  the  early 
trains.  Next  morning,  however,  all  must  be 
begun  anew;  and  to  the  tax  of  regular  work  is 
added  the  manifold  charm  of  miscellaneous 
and  not  always  ascetic  wanderings  under  the 
gaslight.  After  six  months  Morland  had  a 
queer  feeling  —  or,  worst  of  all,  a  lack  of  feel 
ing —  in  his  head;  a  positive  headache  or  a 
broken  limb,  or  a  clear  case  of  diphtheria 
would  have  been  actually  welcome  in  com 
parison.  When,  for  a  fortnight,  he  had  walked 
through  the  city  as  though  in  a  dazy  dream  in 
which  men's  voices  sounded  strange  or  distant 
and  his  hold  on  his  own  personality  seemed  to 
be  failing  him,  and  he  had  gone  at  length  to 
the  basement  office  of  a  German  West  End 
doctor,  he  found  difficulty  in  saying,  in  answer 


An  Heir  of  the  Ages.  143 

to  the  medical  man's  questions,  that  anything 
was  the  matter  with  him.  He  slept,  ate, 
walked,  wrote,  and  reasoned  as  usual,  but  he 
could  only  aver  that  things  seemed  queer  — 
a  proposition  which  the  Teutonic  ^Esculapius, 
who  was  an  advanced  "thinker"  and  ethical 
sociologist,  readily  admitted,  while  he  adminis 
tered  jokes  and  prescribed  plenty  of  fresh  air, 
roast  beef,  stale  bread,  no  beer  or  sweets,  and 
a  semi-daily  dose  of  a  diluted  acid  to  be  drunk 
through  a  glass  tube.  Slow  recovery  came, 
with  occasional  relapses,  and  Morland,  at  the 
end  of  his  second  year,  though  he  had  lost  the 
slight  touch  of  up-country  red  in  his  cheeks, 
and  looked  thirty  years  old,  was  duly  acclima 
tized,  with  a  clear  sense  of  the  silliness  of  his 
own  visions  —  which  had  included  death  or 
dementia  —  and  the  superiority  of  the  medical 
profession  over  the  clerical  in  real  utility  to 
the  world. 

When  his  little  salary  and  steadily  increasing 
space-writing  concerning  all  things,  and  a  few 
other  matters,  had  for  some  time  brought  him 
thirty-five  or  forty  dollars  a  week,  he  was  put, 
according  to  the  thrifty  custom  of  newspaper 
counting-rooms,  on  a  regular  weekly  wage  of 
twenty-five  dollars  for  all  work;  which  sum, 
when  reported  in  the  white  and  green  houses 
of  his  native  village,  seemed  permissive  of  in- 


144  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

definite  possibilities  of  expenditure:  "  Only 
two  years  out  of  college,  too  !  Why,  our  pastor 
gets  eight  hundred  a  year,  instead  of  thirteen ; 
and  hard  enough  it  is  to  raise  the  minister-tax 
to  pay  him  once  a  quarter." 

In  the  city,  with  its  more  magnificent  money 
standards,  Morland  found  his  new  stipend,  with 
some  savings  from  the  former  wage,  just  suf 
ficient  to  warrant  a  double  room  and  some 
what  more  dainty  dinners.  In  the  newspaper 
office,  as  his  special  fitnesses  became  more  mani 
fest,  his  assignments  to  general  work  fell  off, 
while  those  of  book-reviews  and  miscellaneous 
editorials  increased,  until,  with  the  exception  of 
an  occasional  obituary  of  some  man  of  letters, 
he  was  virtually  nothing  more  than  literary 
critic.  His  ten-year  stock  of  English  literature 
stood  him  in  good  stead,  reinforced  as  it  was 
by  the  journalist's  sixth  sense  of  quickly  turn 
ing  to  the  right  pigeon-hole  of  his  brain  for 
the  desired  fact  or  apt  allusion.  It  happened 
that  the  managing  editor,  who  declared  that 
he  had  n't  read  a  book  for  thirteen  years,  was 
specially  pleased,  in  any  article,  with  twenty 
mentions  of  collateral  or  remote  names,  while, 
on  his  own  side,  Morland's  knack  of  multifari 
ous  literary  allusion  was  almost  a  fault ;  hence 
his  comparatively  rapid  advancement  to  a  chair 
usually  denominated  soft. 


An  Heir  of  the  Ages.  145 

Mystery  hangs,  for  the  public  eye,  over  the 
newspaper  office  in  general,  and  especially, 
perhaps,  over  the  desk  of  the  book-reviewer. 
In  his  non-professional  walks  Morland  had  to 
answer  many  an  italicised  question.  "  Do  you 
really  read  all  the  books  you  review?"  "  How 
do  you  find  time?"  "  Aren't  you  afraid  the 
author  will  be  very  angry  if  you  say  such  un 
kind  things  of  him?"  "  What  a  great  library 
you  must  have?"  "How  perfectly  lovely  it 
must  be  to  have  nothing  to  do  but  to  read  all 
day  long,  and  get  paid  for  it !  "  Meanwhile 
poor  Morland  reduced  his  gentle  art  to  a  sys 
tem,  and  revised  my  lord  of  Verulam's  dictum 
until,  in  the  midnight  gaslight  of  the  top  stories 
that  overhung  the  narrow  thoroughfare,  it  read 
somewhat  as  follows :  "  Some  books  are  re 
prints  from  periodicals;  others  are  worthless 
on  page  28,  preposterous  in  chapter  IX.,  or 
wave  asses'  ears  in  the  preface;  still  others 
are  manufactured  alphabetically  ;  then,  of 
course,  there  are  novels ;  and  once  in  a  year 
or  two  may  come  something  really  worth 
while.  Say  of  the  first  what  you  already 
know;  put  to  the  second  the  knack  of  the 
tea-taster;  test  the  third  by  their  weakest 
spots;  get  the  gist  of  the  fourth,  if  you  can; 
and  thank  Apollo  for  the  fifth."  Meanwhile, 
if  his  old  stock  of  classic  literature  got  farther 
10 


146          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

and  farther  away,  and  less  and  less  often  did 
he  read  a  book  through,  seldom  did  he  make 
a  conspicuous  mistake  in  his  estimates,  or  fail 
to  produce  swift  reviews  that  served  the  public 
better  than  those  laboriously  contributed  by 
professorial  specialists,  —  which,  he  noted,  were 
usually  four  weeks  late,  too  long  or  too  short, 
and  chiefly  devoted  to  the  magnifying  of  some 
little  point  that  had  delighted  or  disgusted  the 
learned  reviewer,  with  whom  he  was  usually 
obliged  to  carry  on  a  voluminous  correspon 
dence,  largely  devoted  to  explanations  why 
proof  had  not  been  sent,  as  requested,  a  week 
before  publication. 

So  the  years  went  on;  Morland's  reviews 
and  editorials  and  obituaries  somewhat  gained 
in  facility  of  epigram,  and  correspondingly 
lost  in  enthusiasm  of  expression.  Censure 
and  commendation  from  his  pen  became  more 
indirect,  and  his  readers,  if  they  admired  the 
cleverness  of  the  verbal  product,  were  not 
always  certain  as  to  the  real  drift  of  the  writ 
ing.  Indeed,  a  sort  of  haze  of  insincerity 
sometimes  seemed  to  hang  between  the  news 
paper  he  served  and  the  eyes  of  its  readers, 
a  circumstance  due  perhaps  to  the  fact  that 
it  was  so  often  read  by  club-gentlemen  over 
cigarettes  and  coffee. 

Indeed,  Morland  found  the  environment  of 


An  Heir  of  the  Ages.  147 

his  profession,  from  which  he  neither  saw  nor 
desired  escape  in  life,  steadily  conducive  to 
the  development  of  a  spirit  of  negation.  His 
function  was  to  criticise,  not  create;  to  de 
nounce,  or  at  best  to  describe,  and  certainly 
not  to  do.  If  his  denials  were  languid,  they 
were  increasingly  artistic,  and  his  very  visible 
cynicism  was  contemplative  rather  than  vio 
lent.  Excessive  vituperation  was  indubitably 
as  vulgar  as  hearty  and  creative  optimism  was 
risky;  he  would  none  of  either.  He  who 
builds  may  err,  and  he  who  destroys  may  re 
gret  ;  but  it  is  always  safe  to  make  mild  sug 
gestions  that  things  might  well  be  different. 
Even  one  of  God's  sunsets  may  seem  inartis- 
tically  arranged.  Who  has  not  noted  the  un- 
naturalness  of  nature,  with  its  dauby  green 
landscapes  and  eye-smiting  collocations  of 
color?  If,  on  an  evening  when  somebody 
had  seen  the  radiant  orb  go  down  in  regal 
glory  of  orange  and  purple,  he  had  asked 
Morland  whether  it  were  not  the  most  beau 
tiful  day-ending  he  had  ever  beheld,  he  would 
have  replied,  in  circumflex,  "perhaps;"  which, 
in  his  vocabulary,  had  become  the  substitute 
for  "  yes,"  as  "  hardly "  had  taken  the  place 
of  "  no."  Possibly  that  was  one  of  the  rea 
sons  why  readers  called  his  newspaper  "  The 
Laodicean." 


148          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

But  Morland  was  no  specialist  in  sunsets, 
despite  all  his  youthful  visions  of  the  great 
range  to  the  westward  of  his  boyhood  home. 
Once  in  a  while  he  could  not  fail  to  notice, 
through  the  southwestern  streets  of  the  Back 
Bay,  the  saffron  that  overhung  the  spires; 
while  Corey  Hill  and  West  Roxbury  were  al 
together  more  agreeable  for  his  Sunday  walks 
in  May  and  October  than  in  August,  just 
before  his  two  weeks'  vacation,  —  earned  at 
both  ends.  But  the  lilt  of  the  meadow-lark 
was  not  for  him,  save  as  it  refreshed  an  uncon 
scious  ear  after  a  hard  and  hot  night  at  the 
office.  His  life,  for  the  most  part,  was  the 
negatively  innocent  one  of  the  flaneur ;  abso 
lute  vice  was  so  coarsely  commonplace  as  to 
be  unendurable  to  a  nature  that  was  becom 
ing  —  or  thought  it  was  becoming  —  more 
refined  with  every  year;  but  the  song-bird's 
chorus,  the  sky's  banners,  the  garden's  glory, 
the  ocean's  lure  were  in  vain,  for  which  cir 
cumstance  he  was  not  unduly  to  be  blamed ; 
for  to  most  eyes  seeing  is  not  vision.  Morland 
himself  had  once  averred,  with  a  chuckle,  that 
a  botanist  sees  no  flowers,  a  geologist  no  land 
scape,  a  biologist  no  life. 

But  he  had  his  better  moods,  or  rather 
mood.  That  evolution  is  progress  is  proved 
by  the  decadents  and  degenerates  who  lag  by 


An  Heir  of  the  Ages.  149 

the  way,  stroll  into  by-paths,  or  turn  and  go 
backward  ;  and  Morland  thought  he  was 
proving  it  when  he  made  up  his  mind  to  give 
his  brain  a  chance;  though  his  soul  might  be 
stunted,  he  had  determined  that  his  mind 
should  do  something  more  than  grind  out 
book-reviews  of  which  not  one  reader  in  ten 
thousand  knew  the  authorship,  and  which  were 
dead  and  inaccessible  in  a  month.  It  was  his 
fancy  even  that  his  mental  courage  had  in 
creased  because  of  his  sacrifice  of  spiritual 
sense, — the  half  is  more  than  the  whole. 
Against  religion,  for  that  matter,  he  had  noth 
ing  to  say ;  it  was  indubitably,  like  the  police 
force,  a  necessity  for  the  lower  classes,  and, 
like  a  cup  of  tea,  a  boon  to  old  ladies.  At 
one  time,  indeed,  he  debated  during  an  entire 
table  d'hote  dinner  whether,  by  a  final  act  of 
rationalism,  to  enter  the  Roman  Church  and 
eliminate  even  the  slight  interruption  given 
him  by  his  nearly  dormant  ethical  sense ;  but 
by  the  time  he  lit  his  cigar  he  found  it  difficult 
to  reconcile  his  vision  of  the  most  august  in 
stitution  of  the  ages  with  actual  paper  flowers, 
bad  art,  and  imperfect  ventilation.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  thin  and  impersonal  aspirations 
toward  ethical  improvement  —  addressed  to 
nobody  in  particular  —  which  took  the  place 
of  prayers  in  the  weekly  gathering  of  a  body 


150  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

of  "  advanced  thinkers,"  ceased  to  interest  him 
after  a  Sunday  or  two.  If  that  was  all,  why 
take  the  trouble  to  go  and  sit  for  an  hour  in  a 
dance-hall,  and  then,  while  going  down  the 
stairs,  have  to  listen  to  the  reverential  adora 
tion  bestowed  upon  the  lecturer  by  various 
half  educated  acquaintances  who  refused  to 
worship  anything  else,  with  the  possible  excep 
tion  of  their  own  brains  and  Mr.  Darwin's. 

Out  of  this  sort  of  life,  then,  came  a  misty 
but  gradually  consolidating  idea  that  he  would 
write  a  book,  books  perhaps,  or  at  any  rate 
essays,  —  since  his  newspaper  habit  of  finishing 
everything  at  a  sitting  had  become  almost  a 
second  nature.  In  this  idea  he  was  as  far 
from  the  thought  of  money  as  he  was  from 
that  of  benefiting  anybody.  Even  the  fame 
he  had  in  mind  was  simply  that  of  one  who 
could  clearly  set  forth  something  that  the  un- 
superstitious  would  read  and  know  he  wrote ; 
the  anonymous  irked  him.  So  does  the  east 
ern  American  think,  with  pen  in  hand,  ser 
mons  in  the  seventeenth  century,  Federalists 
in  the  eighteenth,  and  what-not  in  the  nine 
teenth.  If  Morland,  like  old  Thomas  Welby, 
had  ever  framed  a  title,  it  would  have  been 
no  Philosophy  of  Life,  —  delicate  and  dispas 
sionate  negation  need  not  fuss  about  philoso 
phies.  Once  he  reflected  concerning  the  idea 


An  Heir  of  the  Ages.  151 

of  a  collection  of  essays  to  be  called  "  The 
Disproof  of  the  Provable,"  until  he  happened 
to  think  that  it  might  be  used  against  Herbert 
Spencer  as  well  as  against  the  Reverend  John 
Angell  James.  Was  he  a  propagandist  of 
anything?  No;  there  was  not  much  use  if 
you  were  a  Schopenhauer  in  taking  the  trouble 
to  say  so  in  hundreds  of  printed  pages.  His 
heartiest  laugh  for  many  a  day  came  when  he 
saw  on  a  bill-board  a  theatrical  poster  in  which 
a  shock-headed  and  broken-toothed  farm-boy 
was  enunciating  and  answering  the  query, 
"  What 's  the  good  of  anythin'  ?  Nothin'." 

But  the  evolved  mood  in  its  last  estate  — 
the  proof  that  his  own  personality  had  reached 
a  point  somewhat  above  that  of  the  primitive 
cave-dweller,  with  sharpened  flint-stone  in 
hairy  hand,  fighting  wild  beasts  for  scanty 
food  —  led  to  his  ultimate  decision  to  quit  his 
editorial  place,  write  book-reviews  when  he 
chose,  multiply  the  neatly-turned  essays  he 
was  already  contributing  to  one  English 
monthly  review  and  two  or  three  American 
magazines,  and  let  his  mind  grow  for  mind's 
sake  merely.  Was  not  this  heroic  altruism? 

So  it  came  to  pass  that  he  bought  an  in 
terest  in  a  home-and-literary  weekly  of  good 
local  repute,  published  for  long  in  Harborside, 
and  well  known  to  him  from  his  boyhood  days, 


152  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

when  the  post-office  boxes  had  been  plenti 
fully  sprinkled  with  its  issues  every  Friday 
afternoon.  Morland,  strange  to  say,  now  had 
eight  or  ten  thousand  dollars  ahead,  partly 
saved  from  his  salary  and  partly  made  by 
modest  flyers  in  the  "  street;  "  he  having  had 
sufficient  sense  to  pull  in  his  kites  before  the 
strings  broke.  The  easy  editorship  of  his  new 
paper  came  to  him  as  of  right;  his  old  one 
was  glad  to  retain  his  services  as  caustic  re 
viewer  of  as  many  books  as  he  cared  to  have 
sent  him ;  and  the  strain  of  an  intenser  jour 
nalism  being  removed,  he  filed  and  refined  his 
published  or  unpublished  social  and  semi- 
scientific  essays  to  his  heart's  content.  Har- 
borside  was  a  pleasant  place,  the  most  metro 
politan  small  city  he  knew,  with  a  library  and  a 
bookstore  and  a  club  and  a  coterie  —  not  very 
large,  of  course  —  of  people  of  sufficient  intel 
ligence  to  know  when  to  talk,  and  sufficient 
culture  to  know  when  to  be  silent ;  so,  since 
its  atmosphere  was  unquestionably  saline  and 
did  not  suggest  his  now  disliked  up-country 
New  England  in  the  least,  Morland  got  along 
very  well,  and  was  deemed,  by  those  whose 
aims  were  neither  financial  nor  political,  al 
most  the  lion  of  the  town. 

He  had  lived  there  nearly  ten  years  when  he 
met   Amoret,  and   determined,   after   a   day's 


An  Heir  of  the  Ages.  153 

casual  reflection,  that  she  was  the  only  woman 
who  had  ever  interested  him.  "  A  pretty  high 
compliment?"  queried  he,  as  he  laid  down  his 
curling-iron.  "  It  is  barely  possible  that  she 
will  deserve  it." 


154         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 


VII. 

A  SUMMER  STORM. 

MORLAND  found  no  such  difficulty  as 
the  gentle  Amoret  had  anticipated  in 
discovering  the  fact  that  Miss  Tetley  and  her 
new  assistant  had  quartered  themselves  in 
their  seaside  cottage;  nor  was  the  location 
of  that  modest  domicile  difficult  of  ascertain 
ment.  Perhaps  three  days  intervened  between 
his  call  at  the  deserted  house  in  town  and  his 
appearance  at  the  door  of  the  summer  house- 
let  three  miles  away.  The  call  was  nominally 
made  in  friendly  fashion  upon  Miss  Tetley,  for 
whom,  in  point  of  fact,  Morland  had  always 
felt  a  mild  liking.  She  was  intelligent,  she 
was  not  commonplace ;  she  had  a  tactful  way 
of  suggesting  satirical  opinions  without  actu 
ally  expressing  them,  and  as  a  conversation 
alist,  she  had  the  custom,  none  too  common, 
of  talking  half  the  time  and  listening  half; 
for  neither  she  nor  Morland  believed  that  the 
art  of  talk  consisted  of  a  lecture-monologue 
on  one  side  and  a  beaming  or  bored  silence 


A  Summer  Storm.  155 

on  the  other.  So  they  got  along  very  well 
together,  and  Morland  mildly  enjoyed  a 
quarterly  chat  in  her  frigid  parlor.  Nothing 
was  easier,  accordingly,  than  to  seem  to  make 
Amoret  a  pleasant  afterthought  in  his  walk 
out  the  Cape  in  search  of  the  house  of  his  old 
friend;  and,  strangely  enough,  both  the  ladies 
believed  that  his  appearance  was  a  sort  of  acci 
dent  —  Miss  Lodema  because  she  never  had 
connected  the  thought  of  sentiment,  or  even 
of  ordinary  "  attentions "  to  young  women, 
with  the  cool,  self-centred,  and  now  suffi 
ciently  mature  personality  of  Harborside's 
chief  man-of-letters ;  Amoret  because  her 
entirely  unaffected  modesty  assumed  that  she 
was  but  a  minor  part  of  her  cousin's  eminently 
respectable  and  long-known  establishment. 

They  were  sitting  on  the  shaded  porch  when 
Morland  came  to  the  gateway,  hat  in  hand 
and  black  hair  blowing  lightly  away  from  his 
white  forehead. 

"  Ah !  I  've  found  you !  What  a  pleasant 
summer  shrine ! "  said  he. 

Amoret  rose  with  a  happy  look,  but  Miss 
Tetley  remained  seated;  she  was  embroider 
ing  a  table-scarf  in  a  complexity  of  flossy 
silks,  and  said,  in  the  unruffled  contralto  that 
is  developed  by  long  years  of  dealing  with 
the  gushing  gayety  or  stolid  intractability  of 


156         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

schoolgirls,  "This  is  a  welcome  sight,  Mr. 
Morland ;  take  a  seat,  and  stay  to  tea  as  a 
penalty  for  never  coming  here  before." 

"With  pleasure,"  said  the  critic,  "since 
that  allows  me  to  come  again  and  make  my 
'  party-call ; '  "  and  he  sat  down  at  the  foot  of 
the  elder  lady,  where  he  could  conveniently 
look  into  the  face  of  Amoret,  who  noticed,  as 
he  held  his  soft  hat  in  his  hand,  the  green  tint 
in  both  hat  and  eyes,  and  the  delicacy  of  his 
shapely  long  fingers.  As  for  his  motions, 
they  seemed  so  reticently  graceful  and  yet 
unartificial  that  Amoret  rather  envied  them, 
and  began  to  feel  a  wholly  new  sense  of  awk 
wardness.  Rodney  had  not  often  been  in  her 
mind  of  late;  but  since  meeting  Morland,  she 
could  hardly  avoid  recurrent  thoughts  of  her 
childhood  friend,  in  the  persistency  of  con 
trast.  Rodney  was  like  —  or  had  been  like  — 
abounding,  happy  dog;  Morland's  movements 
were  those  of  a  cat  shod  in  aristocracy,  clad 
in  ermine,  soft  in  action,  and  reposeful  in 
quiet.  The  feline  comparison  did  not  suggest 
cool  trickery  to  Amoret's  mind,  but  rather  a 
remark  she  had  read  in  some  essay,  to  the 
effect  that  cats  should  be  the  companions  of 
brain-toilers,  because  of  their  self-respectful 
delicacy  of  demeanor.  Somehow,  at  any 
rate,  Amoret  felt  for  the  first  time  in  her  life 


A  Summer  Storm.  157 

in  the  presence  of  a  person  clearly  and  hope 
lessly  superior  to  herself,  whose  thoughts  and 
words  were  well  worth  following,  and  in  whose 
esteem  she  fain  would  stand,  because  he  repre 
sented  an  ideal,  unfleshly  and  high,  no  incar 
nation  of  which  had  previously  crossed  her 
path. 

"  These  seaside  days  of  yours  must  be  very 
happy,"  said  Morland,  looking  at  both  ladies, 
but  letting  his  eyes  rest  upon  Amoret's. 
"  How  do  you  best  like  to  spend  them,  Miss 
Wenton  ?  "  said  he. 

Amoret  bent  forward  and  picked  one  huge 
daisy  of  a  preposterously  long  and  twiggy 
stem,  her  supple  movement  being  as  pretty  in 
Morland' s  eyes  as  it  was  clumsy  in  her  own. 
Secretly  delighted  to  see  Morland  again,  she 
felt  desirous  of  doing  something  to  gain  a 
minute's  time  that  she  might  seem  to  be 
more  at  ease  than  she  really  was,  for  she  was 
troubled  by  her  new  annoyance  at  the  limita 
tions  of  her  self -education  as  compared  with 
the  .richly-stored  mind  of  this  veritable  editor 
and  author,  concerning  whom  she  had  easily 
elicited  plenty  of  information  since  their  first 
meeting.  Morland,  on  his  part,  was  wonder 
ing  whether  his  new  interest  in  this  slip  of  a 
girl  was  due  to  the  fact  that  she  seemed  a 
living  heroine  of  the  Elizabethan  lyric  period, 


158         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

or  to  her  ill-concealed  awareness  of  his  pres 
ence.  Physical  beauty  and  flattering  defer 
ence  in  woman  are  about  equally  attractive  to 
the  masculine  mind,  and  when  the  cords  of 
the  two  are  wound  together,  and  pull  in  the 
same  direction,  they  stir  even  so  self-centred 
an  individual  as  Henry  Morland. 

"  Oh,  in  looking  at  the  sea  and  reading  an 
occasional  book,"  said  Amoret,  rather  weakly, 
in  her  own  opinion. 

"You  agree  with  our  cosmic  American, 
then,  that  it  is  good  to  '  loaf  and  invite  your 
soul,'  "  said  Morland. 

"My  soul  gets  plenty  of  invitations  and 
returns  few  acceptances,"  replied  Amoret, 
with  a  ringing  little  laugh  that  Morland  heard 
for  the  first  time,  and  that  also  seemed  to 
carry  away  with  it,  to  Amoret 's  delight,  her 
own  silly  embarrassment. 

"Your  notion  of  rest,  Mr.  Morland,"  said 
Miss  Tetley,  "would  be  better  expressed  by 
Whitman's  great  opposite:  'Toil  unsevered 
from  tranquillity. '  How  did  you  happen  to 
allow  yourself  the  leisure  of  this  afternoon 
walk?" 

"Because  I  couldn't  drive  from  my  mind 
the  thought  of  this  poetic  creature,"  said 
Fact  in  Morland's  mind.  "Because  my  work 
was  done  two  days  ahead,  and  I  wanted  to  ask 


A  Summer  Storm.  159 

you  again  about  that  quotation  from  Haw 
thorne —  I've  been  hunting  it  for  a  week," 
said  Fiction,  as  it  looked  Miss  Tetley  ingenu 
ously  in  the  eye. 

"  That  passage  about  growing  old  ? "  said 
she.  "  I  found  it  for  you  the  very  next  day, 
and  wrote  it  out.  Amoret,  dear,  won't  you 
get  a  little  slip  that  lies  in  my  desk?  Open 
the  top  and  you  '11  find  it  in  the  right-hand 
pigeon-hole. "  As  Amoret  went  through  the 
door  the  wind  fluttered  the  long  ribbons  that 
hung  from  her  belt,  and  Morland  wondered 
where  she  found  their  nondescript  tint  of 
Italian  yellow. 

"Here  it  is,"  said  Miss  Tetley,  on  her  re 
turn,  and  read :  — 

This  bemoaning  of  one's  self  over  the  first  careless, 
shallow  gayety  of  youth  departed,  and  this  profound 
happiness  over  youth  regained,  —  so  much  deeper 
and  richer  than  that  we  lost,  —  are  essential  to  the 
soul's  development. 

r'That  's  good  gospel  for  a  woman  of  fifty- 
five  ! " 

"Or  for  a  man  of  thirty-eight,"  said  Mor 
land,  with  equal  candor.  "Time,  while  it 
lasts,  is  nothing  but  a  procession  of  dots,  to 
be  used  seriatim;  we  must  throw  away  the 


160         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

old  before  we  get  the  new,  and  the  new  is  as 
fresh  for  you  or  me  as  for  Miss  Wenton. " 

"And  as  old  for  me  as  for  Methuselah," 
added  Amoret.  "  I  wonder  if  Methuselah  is 
alive  somewhere  this  minute?  What  fun  it 
will  be  when  we  die!  I  don't  care  anything 
about  eternal  rest,  but  I  would  like  to  hear 
Chaucer  talk,  tell  Sir  Thomas  Browne  about 
the  new  crematories,  and  ask  Bach  how  fast 
his  fugues  ought  to  be  played." 

"Life  must  be  youth,"  said  Morland; 
"when  it  ceases  to  be  so  it  becomes  death." 

"And  any  minute  is  the  tip  of  the  stalk, 
the  sum  of  all  the  good  that  has  gone  before 
—  just  like  the  sticky  bud  on  top  of  the  little 
horse-chestnut  tree  I  used  to  watch  behind 
grandpa's  shop,"  said  Amoret;  and  there 
flashed  into  her  mind  the  thought  that  Rod 
ney  and  she  had  once  had  some  such  talk  as 
this  very  one. 

"  Death  itself  is  nothing  but  another  min 
ute  in  our  career,  as  though  we  were  just 
stepping  on  a  railroad  train,"  said  Miss 
Tetley,  who  made  up  for  her  unorthodoxy 
in  some  things  by  a  dogmatic  conservatism 
in  others. 

"  Unless  it  may  be  the  rotting  of  the  last 
living  particle  of  Miss  Wenton's  horse- 
chestnut,"  said  Morland. 


A  Summer  Storm.  161 

"But  the  tree  leaves  behind  it  other  chest 
nuts  to  plant,"  said  Amoret. 

"  My  great-grandfather  is  not  alive  because 
I  am,"  said  he. 

"But  his  memory  is,"  said  Amoret.  "If 
so  frail  a  thing  as  a  mere  recollection  can 
survive,  mustn't  a  thing  a  thousand  fold  more 
important  be  in  existence  still  ?  " 

"  On  that  argument  you  could  prove  that  the 
bit  of  stone  you  threw  into  the  ocean  week 
before  last  has  a  soul,  because  you  remember 
its  corner  scratched  your  hand  when  you  threw 
it,"  said  Morland. 

"You  see,  Amoret  dear,  what  a  dreadful 
heretic  Mr.  Morland  is,"  said  Miss  Tetley 
with  a  smile.  "  I  really  must  n't  let  you  stay 
together  too  long.  But  he  likes  to  shock 
people." 

"Well,"  said  Amoret,  eagerly,  "living  is 
everlasting  youth,  and  I  'm  sure  I  shall  be 
happier  and  wiser  ten  thousand  years  ahead 
than  I  am  to-day.  This  world  would  be  a 
dead  failure  were  it  not  for  two  things,  God 
and*  immortality. " 

"A  dead  failure,"  said  Morland,  in  a  low 
voice;  and  Amoret  wondered  what  he  meant, 
meanwhile  guessing  that  he  had  some  inner 
sorrow,  and  determining  to  prove  to  him,  some 
time  and  somehow,  that  the  theme  of  all  life 
ii 


1 62          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

is  the  growth  of  the  human  soul,  the  develop 
ment  of  character,  the  setting  forth  of  the 
universality  of  the  upward  tendency  of  the 
world.  Morland  had  heard  such  sermons 
before. 

Lighter  and  brighter  talk  followed,  and  at 
tea-time  the  trio  became  as  jestful  as  though 
there  were  never  a  problem  in  the  world. 
Morland  never  got  excited  over  anything,  nor 
did  his  coolness  desert  him  now;  but  his 
wonder  grew  that  a  girl  could  be  so  pretty 
and  yet  know  so  much.  His  city  experiences 
had  confirmed  him  in  an  early  impression  that 
feminine  beauty  was,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  dis 
associated  from  anything  save  a  modicum  of 
mentality,  and  that  sagacity  was  most  fre 
quently  accompanied  in  this  world  by  raw- 
boned  faces  and  large  feet;  but  here  was  a 
compact  disproof  of  his  theory.  Oddly 
enough,  Amoret  seemed  to  be  virgin  soil.  Why 
had  n't  she  had  any  "  experiences  "  before  this  ? 
Anybody  might  fall  in  love  with  her,  though 
Morland  had  as  yet  hardly  framed  such  a  boy 
ish  plan  for  himself.  If  she  was  a  flirt,  she 
was  at  least  an  actress  whose  ways  were  worth 
studying,  and  he  would  study  them.  Morland 
was  no  Dante,  and  the  faintly  defined  new 
life  which  began  for  him  when  first  he  saw 
this  modern  Beatrice,  meant  —  if  it  meant 


A  Summer  Storm.  163 

anything  at  all  —  that  he  would  study  her  for 
a  little,  and  let  come  what  would.  Love,  in 
his  ultimate  view,  was  simply  possession  of  a 
woman  for  what  she  was  worth  to  him;  any 
trifling  element  of  self-sacifice  for  Amoret  or 
anybody  else  would  have  seemed  somewhat 
juvenile  or  novelistic.  Meanwhile  the  pos 
sible  loss  due  to  her  intrusion  upon  his  time 
was  more  than  made  up  by  a  new  opportunity 
for  critical  observation  of  Woman.  If  his  vol 
ume  of  "  Studies  in  Social  Evolution,"  already 
half  written,  was  to  be  good  for  anything  it 
must  include  more  than  one  type,  and  here 
surely  was  a  comparatively  unfamiliar  one. 

Amoret' s  Morland,  however,  was  another 
man.  To  her  he  seemed  gentle,  thoughtful, 
cultured,  serious,  with  a  pathetic  little  under 
tone  of  sadness  beneath  his  pleasant  smile, 
and  a  sort  of  attractiveness  in  his  tentative 
pessimism,  which,  she  was  sure,  was  but  the 
scar  of  some  brave  inward  battle  he  had  fought 
all  alone.  For  him  the  shapes  of  life  must 
have-  seemed  empty  and  giftless,  harmless  for 
evil  but  feeble  for  good  to  one  who  was  wan 
dering  like  a  pilgrim  knight  through  a  forlorn 
world.  Had  not  his  existence  so  far  been  a 
succession  of  preludes  to  some  nobler  song? 
If  she  could  but  help  him  to  one  strain  of 
sweeter  sound,  though  she  never  met  him 


164          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

again,  she  would  be  glad.  Did  he  know  the 
sense  of  "God  is  love,"  —  a  love  greater  than 
faith  or  hope,  a  love  bearing  through  the  ages 
the  inner  idea  of  the  Venus  of  Milo?  If  not, 
might  she  not  be  a  humble  priestess  to  him, 
or  to  any  soul  that  needed  help  ? 

It  was  eleven  o'clock  when  such  thoughts 
as  these  ran  through  the  mind  of  the  white- 
clad  Amoret,  ready  for  bed.  She  had  put 
out  her  kerosene  lamp  and  stood  by  the  eastern 
window,  looking  at  the  slightly  dilapidated 
moon  as  it  rose  clear  from  the  tremulous 
water.  A  chipping  sparrow,  somewhere  in 
the  night,  gave  one  abbreviated  trill  and  was 
silent.  "Oh,"  thought  Amoret,  "there  is  so 
much  to  do  in  the  world,  so  much ;  but  I  know 
I  can  do  a  little,"  and  she  went  to  bed.  The 
shadow  of  the  sash  crept  across  the  counter 
pane  as  the  light  increased ;  the  slow  clock  of 
the  distant  city  hall  struck  twelve,  one,  two, 
and  then  Amoret  stood  in  a  little  garden, 
alone  with  Morland.  On  one  side  was  a  city 
peopled  with  statues,  on  the  other  was  a  wood 
of  oak  trees  swarming  with  mosquitoes.  Then 
the  statues  waved  their  hands  and  the  mosqui 
toes  buzzed,  while  Morland  said,  "Choose 
between  the  saints  and  the  sinners ; "  and 
Amoret  tried  to  run  away,  but  her  legs  refused 
their  work,  and  she  could  n't  find  her  French 


A  Summer  Storm.  165 

grammar.  Just  then  she  awoke,  and  discov 
ered  that  she  had  left  the  window-screen  open. 
It  was  seventeen  minutes  past  eight. 

Amoret's  forthcoming  days  were  not  self 
ish,  nor  did  she  become  moon-struck  in  her 
new  scheme  of  helpfulness.  There  was  enough 
to  do :  to  help  Miss  Tetley  get  a  good  rest ; 
to  keep  the  house  in  order;  to  meet  the  per 
fumed  and  amiable  subjects  of  her  instruction 
every  other  morning,  and  on  the  alternate 
days,  at  just  eleven  o'clock,  to  take  an  ocean 
bath  that  was  theoretically  joyous  and  invig 
orating  but  practically  boreal ;  to  write  a  daily 
letter  to  grandfather;  and  to  read  a  daily  stint 
of  a  chapter  in  a  big  book  on  sociology,  and 
two  chapters  in  one  of  George  Meredith's 
novels,  — this  was  enough.  Vacation  is  the 
busiest  time  of  the  year,  and  rest  the  most 
absorbing  of  avocations,  especially  if  there  is 
an  inexplicable  amount  of  mending  to  be 
done.  Between  Morland's  visits  —  which, 
though  not  intrusively  numerous,  were  not 
exactly  infrequent  —  Amoret  therefore  found 
her  time  as  fully  employed  as  did  the  recipient 
of  her  intended  spiritual  counsels,  in  his  read 
ing  of  manuscripts  and  proof,  dictating  of 
correspondence,  and  writing  of  editorials  and 
book-reviews.  His  essay  revision  somehow 
fell  into  abeyance.  "Grind  out  your  day," 


1 66         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

thought  the  editor  ;  "  I  've  a  mind  to  walk 
out  to  the  Cape  to-morrow,  for  exercise." 
"Make  each  minute  a  joy,  for  it  's  the  good 
God's  gift,"  wrote  Amoret  in  red  ink,  and 
pinned  the  sentiment  over  her  stained-pine 
desk. 

One  morning,  a  whole  month  after  these 
first  meetings  between  Morland  and  Amoret, 
Mr.  Welby  happened  to  go  to  the  post-office 
a  little  earlier  than  usual.  His  life,  since 
Amoret's  absence,  had  gone  forward  in  its 
monotonous  but  not  unhappy  way.  Trade 
was  as  it  was,  —  less  and  less  as  compared 
with  the  business  of  years  ago,  but  not  so 
meagre  as  to  mean  instant  need  or  ultimate 
departure  to  the  staring  white  poorhouse  be 
yond  Hunger  Hill.  The  vulgarity  over  the 
way  still  sold  his  flash  weeklies  by  the  dozen, 
and  got  the  trade  of  the  boys  about  town,  the 
servant-girls,  the  new  middle-class  working- 
people,  and,  in  general,  the  race  that  knew 
not  Joseph.  Mr.  Welby 's  experience  was  no 
worse  than  that  of  others  ;  for  instance,  Hen- 
drickson  the  grocer,  whose  wooden  shutters 
and  weather  beaten  sign  availed  little  against 
the  showy  front  and  big  paned  windows  of  the 
new  "Boston  store,"  the  proprietor  of  which 
dyed  his  moustache  and  parted  his  hair  in  a 
horizontal  line  up  the  middle  of  the  back  of 


A  Summer  Storm.  167 

his  head.  Communities  are  ungrateful  to 
their  old  servants  in  trade,  and  care  little  for 
the  good  old  times  in  comparison  with  the 
glitter  of  gaudy  to-day;  besides,  in  the  period 
of  Mr.  Welby's  elder  years,  antiquity  had 
not  come  into  new  fashion,  and  was  out  of 
old  vogue.  Inns  were  hotels;  shops  were 
stores;  tall  clocks  were  sent  to  the  barn-loft; 
bed-warmers  were  remanded  to  the  garret  or 
the  junk-shop;  the  bonnets  and  checked 
waistcoats  of  1830  were  laughed  at  instead  of 
being  restored  to  fashion-plates;  and  such  a 
thing  as  a  silver  buckle  or  a  painted  minia 
ture  was  deemed  a  relic  of  the  days  of  Napo 
leon.  If  Mr.  Welby  had  been  living  a  quar 
ter  of  a  century  earlier  or  later,  or  if  he  had 
been  "  worth "  twenty  thousand  dollars,  he 
would  have  been  deemed  an  eccentric  but  very 
able  and  estimable  man ;  as  it  was,  all  but  a 
few  faithful  friends  passed  him  by.  The 
courtly  remnant  of  the  ancient  town,  to  be 
sure,  withdrew  more  and  more  into  its  shell, 
and_  talked  with  gentle  sadness  of  the  good 
time  lost,  agreeing  that  its  relics  were  get 
ting  fewer  and  fewer;  but  this  remnant,  un 
fortunately,  was  largely  composed  of  those  too 
poor  to  promote  the  circulation  of  money  in 
the  community,  or  too  stingy  to  be  generous. 
In  New  England  economy  becomes  inveterate 


1 68          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

even  when  unnecessary.  Furthermore,  the 
old  circle  had  never  dreamed  of  any  obliga 
tion  to  aid,  directly  or  indirectly,  those  who, 
as  scions  of  well-known  families,  had  always 
been  regarded  as  leaders  of  local  affairs. 
Their  struggle  might  be  bitter,  but  it  must  be 
concealed,  most  of  all,  from  those  who  knew 
it  best ;  and  self-deception,  even,  was  the 
apparent  rule. 

But  Mr.  Welby,  in  his  capacity  of  local 
philosopher,  deemed  that  he  had  a  keener 
sense  of  the  facts  of  things  than  most  of  his 
contemporaries.  "  From  him  that  hath  not 
shall  be  taken  even  that  which  he  hath,"  said 
he  to  the  grocer,  sonorously,  when  once  they 
met  on  the  corner  and  fell  into  a  chat  about 
the  "  improvements "  that  stared  here  and 
there  from  the  familiar  walls.  "  Plenty  of 
horse  sense  in  the  Bible,"  soliloquized  the 
philosopher  on  his  lonely  way  homeward. 
"  My  '  Philosophy  of  Life  '  seldom  comes  up 
to  it,  and  perhaps  never  surpasses  it."  And 
so  he  walked  up  the  old  staircase,  took  down 
his  Paragraph  Bible,  put  on  his  octagonal 
gold  spectacles,  lit  his  solar  lamp,  and  laid 
the  book  down  only  to  turn,  for  comparison's 
sake,  to  his  own  manuscript  bible  of  philo 
sophic  experience,  in  which  the  last  entries 
were :  — 


A  Summer  Storm.  169 

As  for  the  much  and  the  little  in  the  universe, 
each  is  explanatory  of  the  other. 

Make  your  character  your  book ;  live  love. 

(and  he  wondered  whether  anybody  would 
mistake  "  live "  for  an  adjective,  but  deter 
mined  to  let  the  word  stand  for  the  present.) 

Some  men  are  derelicts  on  the  sea  of  life. 
Do     not     test     the    universe    by    your     house- 
thermometer. 

Then  he  added,  after  his  Bible  reading:  — 

Christ  had  the  wit  to  see  that  wedlock  is  earthly, 
friendship  heavenly  ;  there  ought  to  be  a  state  called 
lovelock. 

Old  Testament  and  New  hint  strongly  toward  a 
falling  away  from  a  possible  gift  of  immortal  life. 

The  anthropomorphism  of  the  Hebrew  and  the 
Christian  religious  books  was  as  necessary  as 
temporary. 

And  he  closed  the  two  dear  volumes,  the 
printed  and  the  written;  put  the  one  on  the 
shelf,  locked  the  other  in  its  desk,  went  to 
bed  late,  therefore  rose  early,  breakfasted  on 
a  bit  of  broiled  ham,  and  went  to  the  post- 
office  to  see  if  his  letter  from  Amoret  had 
come  in  the  midnight  mail. 

The     Bellwood    post-office     occupied     the 


170         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

ground  floor  of  an  old  two-story  granite  build 
ing;  the  call-boxes  were  opposite  the  front 
door,  while  on  the  little  corridor  leading  back 
to  the  distribution-room  were  a  dozen  lock- 
boxes  of  large  size,  the  generous  wooden  flap- 
doors  of  which  opened  downward.  The  pos 
session  of  one  of  these  boxes,  the  rental  of 
which  was  no  less  than  two  dollars  a  year, 
was  supposed  by  the  small  boys  of  the  village 
to  give  a  peculiar  air  of  aristocracy  to  the 
proprietors.  While  the  ignoble  crowd  was 
humbly  waiting  for  the  general  delivery, 
watching  whether  anything  was  put  into  this 
or  that  number,  hopeful  as  the  postmaster, 
with  his  bundle  of  letters,  approached  the 
desired  region,  and  hopeless  when  the  box- 
surrounded  door  was  opened ;  some  one  of  the 
few  lock-box  magnates  would  step  quietly  to 
the  dark  passage-way,  leisurely  pull  his  bunch 
of  keys  from  his  trousers  pocket,  open  the 
wooden  flap,  let  it  hang  downward,  keys  and 
all,  extract  his  Whig  or  Democratic  Boston 
daily,  or  weekly  paper  from  distant  New  York, 
glance  at  his  half-dozen  letters,  close  the  box, 
and  walk  out  with  the  sober  air  of  one  on 
confidential  terms  with  the  inner  administra 
tion  of  this  world's  affairs. 

Mr.  Welby  had  succeeded,  by  inheritance, 
to  the  old  box  of  the  dwindled  publishing  and 


A  Summer  Storm.  171 

printing  house;  and  had  no  more  thought  of 
giving  it  up  than  of  abandoning  the  book 
shop  itself.  Box  B  stood  in  his  mind  as  the 
door  of  the  outer  world ;  and  though  its  former 
daily  contents  had  shrunk  so  that  two  or  three 
stray  epistles  and  an  occasional  circular  were 
all  that  usually  came,  before  Amoret  left 
home,  it  would  have  seemed  worse  than  a  sin 
—  an  impropriety  —  to  surrender  the  box  for 
economy's  sake,  and  let  some  new  tenant 
pilfer,  as  it  were,  its  enclosures  day  by 
day. 

That  morning  the  bookseller  walked  south 
ward  in  the  damp  coolness  of  the  river  street 
before  the  sun  was  high.  The  freshness  of 
perennial  youth  was  in  the  gift  of  the  new 
day;  and  a  smile  played  around  his  thin  lips 
as  Squire  Bennett's  weather-beaten,  one-seat 
gig  stopped  by  the  post-office  door.  The  Bell- 
wood  children  said  that  the  squire's  carriage 
had  but  one  seat,  so  that  he  needn't  ever  be 
delayed,  when  he  was  going  to  court,  by  hav 
ing  to  ask  country  trudgers  to  ride  with  him, 
and"  so  wear  out  the  wagon-springs. 

"No  chance  for  you  to-day,  squire,"  said 
the  bookseller;  "the  weather's  too  pleasant 
for  anybody  to  want  to  go  to  law." 

"Ah,  my  friend,"  said  the  squire,  "just  the 
sort  of  sun  to  be  a  weather-breeder;  one  never 


1 72         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

knows  what 's  going  to  happen  in  this  world, 
or  when  the  storm  's  to  come." 

The  contents  of  box  B,  that  morning,  were 
a  circular  from  a  printing-ink  manufacturer 
and  a  fat  letter  from  Harborside,  —  evi 
dently  the  longest  epistle  Amoret  had  yet 
sent,  unless  it  should  prove  to  contain  wild 
roses,  newspaper  cuttings,  or  other  things 
the  girl  so  often  inclosed  as  of  possible  in 
terest  to  their  recipient.  Possible?  The  old 
man's  brain  had  but  two  thoughts  nowadays 
—  Amoret  and  the  "  Philosophy  of  Life. "  Of 
the  two,  he  imagined  that  he  cared  more  for 
the  second,  because  its  writing  was  his  mature 
business  as  a  man,  while  Amoret  was  but  a 
child  whom  he  was  lovingly  bringing  up  in 
the  intervals  of  adult  toil  and  grandfatherly 
reflection.  Of  late  the  book  had  come  to 
have  its  chief  value  in  his  mind  as  a  sort  of 
legacy,  a  possible  mentor  for  Amoret  when 
he  should  be  gone.  Since,  then,  whatever 
concerned  Amoret  or  the  note-book  was  of 
paramount  importance,  he  took  his  podgy 
envelope  with  a  happy  heart,  walked  back  to 
the  shop,  unlocked  the  heavy  wooden  door 
with  the  brass  key,  long  since  worn  shiny,  sat 
down  in  a  chair  near  the  breeze,  took  his 
glasses  from  their  leather  case,  and  with 
thoughts  of  deliberate  joy,  began  to  read :  — 


A  Summer  Storm.  173 

LONG  CAPE,  2  August,  highnoon. 
To  THE  DEAR  GRANDFATHER,  Greeting:  — 

Oh  dear  !  I  've  so  many  things  to  say  that  I  don't 
know  where  to  begin.  I  really  don't  know  but  I 
would  save  time  by  going  up  on  the  train  to  tell  it 
all  instead  of  scribbling  it.  Why  can't  we  simply 
turn  on  a  current  of  apprehension,  to  run  through 
the  air  from  mind  to  mind,  so  that  the  one  will 
understand  just  what  the  other  wishes,  without  these 
poor  slow  ways  to  which  enfleshed  mortals  are 
bound  ?  A  gives  B  a  rose  to  smell ;  B  hands  C  an 
apple  to  taste  ;  C  kicks  D ;  D  kisses  E ;  E  pats  F ; 
F's  eyes  flash  hate  at  G ;  G  carves  a  statue  whose 
stony  instant  suggests  a  past  and  a  future ;  H  tells 
his  story  in  the  pigments  of  a  picture,  while  J  utters 
his  soul  to  the  world  in  a  symphony,  the  meaning 
of  which  would  be  perfectly  plain  if  you  only  knew 
whether  the  composer  had  in  mind  a  moonlit  lake,  a 
summer  noon,  or  a  placid  nun  who  frets  not  in  her 
convent's  narrow  room.  Meanwhile  those  of  us  who 
chatter  or  scrawl  in  words  do  somewhat  more,  but 
after  all,  I  can't  really  get  at  you  or  you  understand 
the  inner  me.  By  and  by  telepathy  will  do  the  busi 
ness,  and  when  we  are  disembodied,  we  shall  use 
leas'!  what  now  is  most  important,  and  just  flash  ideas 
into  each  other.  Don't  you  think  there's  a  little 
truth  in  clairvoyance,  second  sight,  apparitions  of  the 
dying,  and  all  our  queer  sensations  about  hearing  the 
flutter  of  angels'  wings,  speaking  of  the  devil  and 
having  him  appear,  thinking  we  Ve  been  in  places 
before,  knowing  what  somebody  is  going  to  say, 


174         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

and  all  that?  Of  course  it's  fifty  per  cent  humbug 
and  forty-five  coincidence,  but  what  we  shall  know 
sometime  is  the  five  per  cent. 

Well,  I  'm  not  getting  on  at  all  with  my  letter.  I 
think  I  '11  tell  you  the  worst  and  the  best  last.  My 
teaching  the  uninstructable  ladies  every  other  day 
isn't  the  worst  by  any  means.  They  don't  know 
much  and  they  never  will;  but  they  know  more 
than  they  did  when  I  began  to  sell  them  my  brains, 
and  more  than  they  will  when,  six  months  hence, 
they  Ve  forgotten  all  they  are  paying  for  now.  One 
of  them  wanted  to  know  the  other  day  if  Tennyson 
was  n't  a  great  atheistic  lecturer.  Come  to  find  out, 
she  meant  the  Concord  sage.  That  must  have  been 
because  she  had  for  dessert  at  the  hotel,  where  we 
dined  the  day  before,  two  pieces  of  blueberry  pie, 
brandy-whips,  orange  sherbet,  peaches,  and  water 
melon,  —  enough  to  make  one  think  Spenser  wrote 
the  Rowley  poems.  But  the  three  others  know 
more,  and  all  four  are  just  as  pleasant  as  need  be. 
I  believe  it 's  all  nonsense,  this  talk  about  the  trials 
of  teachers.  In  my  experience  so  far,  I  've  hardly 
had  any  trouble  at  all,  —  any  more,  that  is  to  say, 
than  everybody  must  have  in  this  world  of  drudgery, 
unless  she  has  an  independent  fortune ;  and  then, 
she  merely  swaps  drudgery  for  tedium.  And  do  you 
know,  granddaddy,  I  really  like  to  teach,  —  that  is, 
theoretically  I  do.  Did  you  ever  see  that  device  of 
a  big  torch  in  a  big  hand,  with  a  lot  of  little  torches 
in  little  hands  held  up  to  it  to  catch  some  of  the 
rlame?  Well,  the  big  torch  is  you  or  me  selling 


A  Summer  Storm.  175 

books,  writing  philosophy,  teaching  girls,  or  telling 
New  York  women  the  difference  between  Sebastian 
Bach  and  Offenbach. 

Cousin  Lodema  is  just  as  good  as  she  can  be, 
but  I  don't  think  she  is  a  bit  well.  The  more  she 
rests  the  weaker  she  seems  to  get.  I  do  hope  that 
this  month  of  August  will  begin  to  build  her  up. 

What  are  you  reading  lately?  I  suppose  you  will 
laugh  when  I  say  that  I  have  begun  Sir  Charles  for 
the  second  time.  You  see  I  picked  up  the  fourth 
volume  at  random,  and  before  I  knew  it  I  had  read 
so  much  that  I  thought  I  might  as  well  go  back  to 
the  start. 

We  don't  see  many  friends  out  here,  but  Mr. 
Morland  comes  two  or  three  times  a  week  just  to 
chat  with  cousin  Lodema  and  me.  You  know  I 
mentioned  a  Mr.  Morland  in  a  letter  a  week  or  two 
ago  —  a  literary  man  and  editor  in  Harborside. 
He  certainly  is  an  interesting  personage,  and  one  I 
think  you  would  like  to  know ;  for  real  literary  men, 
with  their  minds  above  the  mud  of  this  world,  are 
not  so  very  common.  Let  me  describe  him :  Age 
thirty-eight  (I  know  exactly,  for  he  told  us  the  other 
day)  ;  height  about  five  feet  ten-and-a-half  inches,  I 
should  say ;  complexion  tinted  marble  ;  hair  black, 
and  a  good  deal  of  it ;  hands  and  feet  small ;  voice 
low,  but  firm ;  eyes  —  I  am  sure  I  can't  tell ;  one 
doesn't  want  to  stare  at  him  too  much,  and  all  I 
have  been  able  to  make  out  is  a  sort  of  chameleon- 
like  dark  brownish  green.  He  is  very  gentle  and 
thoughtful,  and  says  such  unusual  things  that  you 


ij6         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

can't  help  thinking  about  them  long  afterward.  I 
am  sure  he  has  had  some  great  sorrow,  or  some  deep 
sense  of  the  problem  of  life  and  the  woefulness  of  the 
world ;  for  though  he  is  as  gentle  as  a  knight-errant, 
and  I  am  sure  would  be  as  brave  if  there  were 
need,  he  does  n't  seem  to  feel  sure  that  there  is  any 
God  or  immortality,  or  that  things  in  this  world  of 
ours  don't  merely  drift,  without  any  such  thing  as 
real  right  or  wrong.  "  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
abstract  truth,"  he  said  the  other  day.  But  I  do 
believe  that  this  is  all  a  pretence,  —  I  mean  a  self- 
deception,  —  for  I  know  that  nobody  who  has  such 
thoughts  as  his  can  fail  to  be  a  sort  of  poet ;  and  a 
poet  is  a  priest,  and  a  priest  preaches  goodness.  I 
wouldn't  say  so  much  about  him,  save  that  he 
seems  —  I  'm  sure  I  can't  tell  why  —  to  rely  on  poor 
foolish  me.  Once  he  said  that  nobody  had  ever 
helped  him,  or  ever  would,  unless  I  did.  And  he 
knows  all  English  and  American,  and  half  all  Ger 
man,  literature  by  heart ;  and  has  written  for  ever  so 
many  reviews  and  magazines,  and  knows  fifty  times 
as  much  as  I  do  !  What  he  meant  when  he  said, 
another  time,  that  I  helped  him  as  a  flower  helped 
Pan,  was,  I  suppose,  that  any  little  thing  might  teach 
something  to  a  wise  big  one.  He  doesn't  drink 
wine,  I  am  sure,  or  smoke  much,  I  know,  and 
does  n't  care  for  clubs  or  friends.  Indeed,  he  seems 
so  all  alone  that  I  'm  glad  if  I  can  pass  the  time 
of  day  with  him  just  for  one  short  summer.  He 
declares  society  a  sham,  and  social  institutions  mere 
shells,  so  I  don't  believe  he  ever  means  to  marry. 


A  Summer  Storm.  177 

I  must  say  I  think  there  's  a  good  deal  of  truth  in 
what  he  says ;  but  I  wish  he  could  get  a  little  more 
sunshine  into  his  great  big  brain.  I  will  make  him 
yet,  before  I  get  through  with  him. 

Now,  my  own  dearest  good  grandfather  Thomas 
Welby,  don't  be  frightened,  but  just  hop  out  of  your 
armchair  and  say  hurrah  !  I  nearly  got  drowned  the 
other  day,  and  Mr.  Morland  saved  my  life.  Read 
this  through  just  as  fast  as  ever  you  can,  and  forget 
all  about  it,  except  to  thank  him  in  your  heart. 
We  'd  been  planning  a  little  sailing  expedition  for 
ever  so  long,  —  that  is,  cousin  Lode  ma  and  Mr. 
Morland  had ;  and  at  length  we  took  a  little  sloop 
yacht,  with  a  captain  who  knows  every  sunken  rock 
and  barren  tree  on  shore  between  here  and  the  sun 
rise  end  of  the  United  States,  and  started  out.  The 
party  was  a  funny  one  :  we  three  and  an  old  Cana 
dian  Episcopal  minister  and  his  wife  and  son,  a  col 
lege  boy,  who  have  taken  the  next  cottage  for  the 
summer.  Mr.  Morland  said  he  thought  it  would  be 
better  fun  —  I  think  that 's  the  first  time  I  ever  heard 
him  use  the  \vordfun  —  not  to  fill  up  with  giggling 
schoolgirls  and  yachting-cap  youth,  and  I  thought 
so  too. 

WeJJ,  we  started  bright  and  early  —  half-past  five 
in  the  morning  —  for  our  sail  northeastward  up  the 
coast.  The  wind  was  fair,  though  not  strong,  and 
the  captain  thought  we  could  easily  go  up  to  the 
head  of  a  little  narrow  bay  or  fjord  (you  see  I  have  n't 
read  Norwegian  novels  for  nothing),  get  dinner,  and 
come  home,  with  tide  favoring  us,  in  the  afternoon. 

12 


The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

Over  and  up  we  went  in  pretty  fashion ;  we  seemed 
to  skim  along  as  though  there  were  a  stock  of  motion 
in  the  sails  themselves;  it  was  evener  than  flying 
could  be,  and  more  varied  than  travelling  on  a 
smooth  railroad  track;  the  waves  danced  and  the 
seagulls  swooped,  and  over  it  all  was  the  delicious 
fragrance  of  a  comparatively  still  summer  ocean,  and 
a  warm  glow  in  the  air  that  would  have  burned  you 
without  the  breeze,  but,  as  it  was,  merely  made  you 
content.  We  talked  about  everything,  from  fish 
breakfasts  to  the  inscrutables  and  the  mysteries  ;  and, 
do  you  know,  without  giving  away  the  secret  of  your 
book,  I  told  them  how  wise  you  were  and  what 
thoughts  you  had.  Mr.  Morland  said  they  must 
give  you  a  great  deal  of  satisfaction,  which  I  think 
he  meant  as  a  compliment,  for  he  never  condescends 
to  flatter.  Don't  you  respect  anybody  more  who 
seems  thoughtfully  sincere  in  all  he  says,  especially 
when  he  looks  at  you  as  though  he  were  passing 
through  the  door  of  your  eyes  to  the  shrine  of  your 
soul? 

The  wind  did  n't  prove  very  faithful,  but  at  length 
we  got  to  the  little  village  of  Higgins'  Cove — just 
think  of  such  a  name  for  a  picturesquely  situated 
hamlet  under  the  shadow  of  a  great  hill,  beside  sweet 
salt-hay  meadows,  and  looking  down  the  long  ten- 
mile  stretch  of  lovely  sea  and  diminishing  shore ! 
Then  we  "  partook  of  a  frugal  repast,"  as  the  old 
novels  used  to  say,  to  wit :  fish  chowder,  cold  sliced 
corned  beef,  and  blueberry  pie,  in  a  funny  little  hotel. 
In  the  "  parlor,"  or  "  drawing-room,"  as  Mrs.  Minis- 


A  Summer  Storm.  179 

ter  called  it,  were  hung  the  marriage  certificate  of  the 
tavern-keeper  and  his  wife,  with  inserted  photographs 
of  himself,  herself,  and  the  person  who  "  solemnized  " 
the  ceremony;  somehow  the  record  was  not  a  bit 
solemn.  But  over  on  the  opposite  wall  was  another 
framed  monstrosity,  and  that  was  a  pitiful  one, — 
nothing  less  than  the  coffin-plate  —  would  you  believe 
it?  —  of  two  little  children  they  had,  who  died  of 
diphtheria  on  the  same  day  three  years  afterward. 

Then  Mr.  Morland  and  the  Episcopal  minister 
had  their  cigars,  prudently  imported,  —  why  is  it 
that  Episcopalians  all  smoke,  while  an  Orthodox  or 
Baptist  preacher  with  a  pipe  in  his  mouth  would  be 
a  sort  of  curiosity  ?  —  and  we  started  back.  The 
wind  was  weak  for  the  first  mile,  weaker  the  second, 
weakest  the  third,  and  a  figment  of  fancy  the  fourth. 
We  took  our  bearings  by  things  on  the  shore,  and 
finally  could  hardly  see  that  we  were  moving  at 
all ;  we  were  just  teetering  on  the  glassy  water,  and 
the  glare  grew  so  hot  and  heady  that  cousin  Lodema 
had  to  go  below  into  the  little  cabin,  which  was  hot 
ter  yet,  and  put  a  wet  cloth  on  her  head.  The  rest  of 
us  stayed  on  deck,  and  had  enough  to  do  to  keep 
the  mirrored,  wavering  sun- reflection  out  of  our  eyes. 

Here  and  there  in  the  west  were  one  or  two  little 
clouds,  but  no  prospect  of  any  more  wind  for  an 
indefinite  time.  There  was  a  strange  feeling  in  the 
air,  as  though  of  some  impending  calamity ;  our 
voices  sounded  hollow  and  artificial,  and  seemed  to 
echo  back  on  us ;  and  we  wished  we  were  some 
where  else,  or  had  a  chance  to  do  something  instead 


180         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

of  sitting  and  waiting.  Don't  you  know  the  sensa 
tion  one  has  just  before  a  summer  thunder  storm  at 
the  end  of  a  hot  day?  It  isn't  fear  that  we  shall  be 
struck  by  lightning  or  washed  away  by  a  cloud-burst ; 
it's  just  being  "perplexed  and  low,"  like  Will  the 
Warrener's  mother  in  the  old  song  —  if  only  we  could 
draw  a  full  breath,  or  see  a  little  more  clearly,  or 
move  about  with  some  life  in  our  legs.  Well,  it  was 
just  so  in  the  boat ;  I  never  understood  before  how 
the  Ancient  Mariner  must  have  felt  under  similar 
circumstances.  On  land  you  can  at  least  do  some 
thing  or  go  somewhere  —  light  the  lamp  or  make 
believe  you  have  an  errand  down  cellar ;  but  on  the 
water  there  is  nothing,  unless,  as  the  men  of  the 
party  suggested,  you  get  out  and  row.  They  made 
some  empty  jokes,  and  I  tried  to  be  cheerful  for 
poor  cousin  Lodema's  sake,  she  seemed  so  pale  in 
the  hot  and  musty  cabin ;  but  we  were  all  waiting 
and  waiting,  that  was  all.  If  we  could  only  float 
down  beyond  the  black  spar  buoy  on  Dead  Man's 
Ledge,  as  far  as  Thread-of-Life  channel,  off  Hurri 
cane  Island,  two  miles  below  —  what  a  set  of 
names !  —  the  skipper  thought  there  'd  be  a  bit  of 
a  breeze  ;  but  as  it  was  the  sails  simply  hung  in  limp 
perpendicularity. 

Then  there  was  a  ripple  in  the  water,  five  hun 
dred  feet  away,  and  the  ripple  spread  into  a  broad 
dark  sheet  that  seemed  as  unlike  the  mirroring  glitter 
beside  us  as  though  it  had  been  the  land  itself;  the 
sail  gave  a  shivery  beat,  two  or  three  times,  against 
the  mast,  as  if  it  were  vexed,  or  were  being  roused 


A  Summer  Storm.  181 

from  sleep ;  the  little  hollow  tube-like  pennon  at  the 
masthead  wiggled  like  a  cat's  tail  in  meditative  ill- 
nature  ;  and  the  minister  said :  "  There 's  a  little 
breeze;  that's  good."  But  before  you  knew  it  the 
ripples  became  waves  and  the  waves  whitecaps  ;  the 
glassy  sheet  of  water  was  all  covered  by  the  black 
blanket  beyond  ;  the  sail  suddenly  swept  around  to 
the  other  side  of  the  sloop,  giving  the  minister's  son 
just  time  to  dodge  it,  and  when  his  mother  said : 
"  Look  at  that ! "  we  saw  for  the  first  time  a  great 
mass  of  dark,  dirty-gray  cloud,  like  smoke  from  a 
bituminous  coal  furnace,  sweeping  towards  us  from 
the  southwest.  All  this  took  less  time,  I  really  be 
lieve,  than  it  takes  me  to  write  it ;  but  as  soon  as  the 
cloud  came  in  sight  and  the  sail  veered  the  captain 
jumped  around  as  though  things  were  important, 
though  he  did  n't  say  anything ;  told  the  minister's 
son  to  do  something  or  other  with  the  rudder,  and 
tried  himself  to  be  in  two  places  at  once,  as  he  loos 
ened  the  ropes  to  lower  the  sails.  The  jib  was  flut 
tering  free  and  the  mainsail  was  half  down  when  I 
felt  a  splash  of  water  in  my  face  and  saw  that  the 
brown-black  cloud  was  directly  on  us  and  was  liter 
ally  scooping  the  waves  before  it  as  it  came.  The 
next  thing  I  knew  the  sloop  gave  a  great  lurch  for 
ward,  then  pitched  into  a  hole  in  the  water  and  went 
almost  over  on  her  leeward  side.  "  Get  up  on  the 
cabin,  quick ! "  shouted  the  captain,  as  he  grabbed 
the  loose  sail  and  pulled  it  down  by  main  strength ; 
poor  cousin  Lodema  gave  a  little  scream  from  in 
side  ;  and  I everything  comes  back  to  the  I 


1 82          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

in  this  selfish  world  —  lurched  backward,  and  be 
fore  I  knew  it,  felt  a  great  ringing  in  my  ears  and 
strangulation  in  my  throat  and  icy  helplessness  every 
where  :  I  was  in  the  water  over  my  head,  for  the 
first  time  since  I  tumbled  from  the  shed  back  of  old 
Bill  Jones's  house,  one  spring  freshet  when  I  was  a 
little  girl.  Well,  to  tell  the  truth,  I'  did  n't  know  any 
thing  for  half  a  minute,  save  one  universal  discomfort, 
though  I  did  n't  faint  away  or  anything  of  that  sort ; 
but  they  told  me  afterwards  that  I  had  been  sitting 
on  the  gunwale  to  try  to  weight  the  boat  on  the  side 
against  the  wind,  had  gone  off  backward  when  she 
nearly  upset,  and  that  Mr.  Morland,  quick  as  a  flash, 
had  thrown  himself  off  the  side,  keeping  hold  of  the 
gunwale  with  one  hand  and  clutching  my  skirts  with 
the  other.  I  don't  know  whether  he  can  swim,  but  I 
do  know  that  I  can't ;  and  if  he  had  been  a  tenth  of 
a  second  later,  the  sloop,  whether  it  overturned  or 
not,  would  have  lurched  a  rod  eastward  and  left 
me,  head  downwards,  to  take  my  chances  in  a  bay- 
full  of  water  and  a  sky-full  of  wind. 

Well,  they  pulled  me  aboard,  the  sloop  righted, 
and  I  was  the  first  person  to  come  to  my  senses  — 
except  the  captain  and  Mr.  Morland,  who  kept  theirs 
all  the  while.  By  the  time  I  was  well  on  the  boat  we 
could  see  the  squall  scudding  away  to  the  northeast, 
and  in  five  minutes  we  were  in  a  dead  calm  once 
more.  The  captain  (who,  of  course,  was  mate  and 
crew  and  everything)  had  hardly  spoken  ten  words 
on  the  whole  cruise,  just  sitting  with  one  hand  on  the 
wheel  and  one  eye  on  the  sail ;  but  now  he  shifted  his 


A  Summer  Storm.  183 

quid,  opened  both  eyes,  drew  his  tattooed  right  hand 
apologetically  down  his  scrubby  chin-beard,  and  said  : 
"  You  '11  have  to  'scuse  me  this  time,  ladies ;  them 
flaws  off  Smutty  Head  comes  quicker 'n  the  devil 
could  wink  at  his  wife."  The  next  thing  was  to 
dry  me,  which  performance  I  rather  enjoyed,  as  I 
never  was  afraid  of  a  bath  when  I  did  n't  have  to 
stay  wet  or  sit  in  a  draft ;  don't  you  remember  the 
old  saw? 

"  When  the  wind  blows  on  you  through  a  hole, 
Fall  on  your  knees  and  pray  for  your  soul." 

But  when  1  crowded  into  the  cabin  with  poor  cousin 
Lodema  —  who  by  this  time  had  palpitation  of  the 
heart  without  her  digitalis  bottle  —  and  handed  out 
my  habiliments  one  by  one  to  dry  on  the  bow,  and 
thought  what  it  all  meant,  I  knew  why  chance  had 
led  Mr.  Morland  to  ask  to  be  presented  to  me  that 
night  at  the  party.  All  I  said  to  him  was :  "  Thank  you 
with  all  my  heart  —  even  my  life  is  worth  something  to 
me  and  more  to  grandfather ;  and  all  he  said  was  — 
I  think,  for  he  spoke  very  low  —  "  and  maybe  most 
of  all  to  others." 

"  Then  it  was  quieter  again,  if  possible,  than  it  had 
been  before  the  "  flaw."  All  I  could  think  of  was 
the  ah-poet's  "  Calm  me !  ah !  compose  me  to  the 
end."  By  this  time  we  were  all  laughing,  except  my 
woeful  relative,  who  had  crawled  from  the  cabin  to 
the  stern ;  and  for  two  mortal  hours  we  waited,  or 
watched  the  seals  sunning  themselves  on  the  rocks, 
or  tried  to  weigh  as  little  as  possible  when  the  men 


184          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

got  out  into  the  appended  rowboat,  hitched  it  to  the 
bow,  and  rowed  us  along.  At  length,  what  with  row 
ing  and  a  tiny  bit  of  sailing,  we  got  to  shore  some 
where,  the  men  bought  crackers  and  codfish  at  a 
grocery  and  bunked  on  the  sloop  for  the  night,  while 
the  "  wimmin-folks "  were  hospitably  taken  into  a 
neighboring  farm  house,  where  we  slept  (in  August !) 
on  feather-beds  under  marvellous  Joseph's-coat  coun 
terpanes,  and  breakfasted  next  morning  on  half-boiled 
green  peas,  served  with  genuine  cordiality  by  a  fat 
woman  and  her  freckled-faced  daughter,  and  liber 
ally  consumed  by  three  knife-swallowing  men  in  their 
shirt-sleeves. 

Oh,  dear,  will  this  interminable  letter  never  end? 
Let  us  hear  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter :  we 
sailed  home  in  a  fresh  breeze,  I  caught  no  cold  from 
the  harmless  salt  water,  cousin  Lodema  was  better, 
and  I  had  saved  my  life  and  gained  and  proved  a  new 
friend.  Was  n't  that  worth  the  slight  discomfort  ? 

Good-bye  —  God  be  with  ye  —  and  put  down  in 
the  Philosophy  of  Life,  — 

"  From  fearful  flaws'  fierce  fury  fate  forfend." 

AMORET. 

As  the  old  man  slowly  read  the  letter,  leaf 
by  leaf,  his  thin  lips  shut  more  tightly  over 
the  false  teeth,  his  eyes  darkled,  and  once  a 
tiny  spot  of  red  came  to  his  white  left  cheek. 
When  the  last  page  was  finished  he  deliber 
ately  turned  again  to  the  first  one,  and  read 


A  Summer  Storm.  185 

the  whole  once  more.  The  bright  spot  faded 
from  his  cheek,  but  the  old  eyes  blazed  as  he 
walked  to  the  desk  in  the  back  of  the  shop, 
untied  a  big  package  of  Amoret's  letters,  put 
this  new  one  on  the  top,  tied  the  bundle  with 
its  red  tape,  crowded  it  back  into  its  pigeon 
hole,  and  unconsciously  spoke  aloud  :  "  It  has 
come;  I  've  expected  it;  but  I  '11  save  her 
from  that  selfish  and  soulless  son  of  luck !  " 

That  very  morning  Amoret  woke  at  three 
o'clock,  when  the  gray  morrowtide  was 
brightening  in  the  east,  and  lay  in  her  bed 
and  thought  and  thought.  At  length,  when 
four  parallel  slats  of  sunlight  appeared  upon 
the  wall  opposite  the  window,  she  rose,  put  on 
her  wrapper,  took  from  her  trunk  a  little  old 
calf-bound  book  that  had  been  a  favorite 
almost  from  childhood,  opened  it  to  a  familiar 
page,  threw  back  the  shutters  toward  the  yel 
low  sea,  fell  on  her  knees  in  the  glow,  and 
read  aloud.  The  podgy  volume  was  old  Nich 
olas  Netherwell's  "Golden  Hopes,"  and  the 
passage  Amoret's  eyes  and  lips  followed  with 
the  fervor  of  a  mediaeval  saint,  was 

A   LITANY   OF   LIFE. 
O  rosy  dawn, 

Thou  risest  from  the  darkness  whence  I  came ; 
O  rosy  dawn, 

Thou  art  the  lingering  glory  of  my  dream  ; 


1 86         The  , End  of  the  Beginning. 

O  rosy  dawn, 

Thou  showest  me  the  pathway  I  must  tread. 
O  golden  noon, 

The  old  is  new,  the  new  is  old  ; 
O  golden  noon, 

Baptize  my  yearning  soul  with  fire  ; 
O  golden  noon, 

Thou  art,  and  so  I  fain  would  be. 
O  hush  of  even, 

Thy  dawntide  comes  never  again ; 
O  hush  of  even, 

Thy  day,  it  is  dead,  is  dead ; 
O  hush  of  even, 

Thy  moment  is  mine,  all  mine. 
O  starry  midnight, 

Dost  thou  weep  for  the  day  that  is  past  ? 
O  starry  midnight, 

Dost  thou  fear  for  the  morning  to  come  ? 
O  starry  midnight, 

May  the  peace  of  thy  silence  be  mine. 
O  day  of  my  birth, 

A  spark  enkindled  a  clod; 
O  day  of  my  birth, 

I  was,  I  am,  I  shall  be. 
O  day  of  my  death, 

Thou  shalt  tear  off  the  veil  of  the  flesh  ; 
O  day  of  my  death, 

Thou  shalt  hide  not  the  secret  of  being. 
O  times  gone  by, 

Perennial  life  is  perennial  youth. 
O  times  to  come, 

Perennial  life  is  perennial  youth. 
O  heart,  my  heart, 

Be  thou  strong  and  true  as  the  heart  of  the 
worlds. 


A  Summer  Storm.  187 

O  friend  of  my  soul, 

Bless  me  with  the  pathos  of  thy  pleasant  smile. 
In  grassy  spring,  in  odorous  summer,  in  yellow  autumn, 
in  lonely  winter, 

I  follow,  follow. 
When  sunlight  has  never  a  shadow, 

I  follow,  follow. 
When  weary  and  stricken  and  old, 

I  follow,  follow. 
When  I  climb  from  the  grave, 

I  follow,  follow 

The  glory  of  ultimate  Love. 

More  than  once  had  Amoret  taken  pleasure 
in  the  resonance  of  the  words,  half  mystic,  all 
clear;  but  now,  as  they  fell  from  her  lips, 
their  meaning  was  new. 


1 88          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 


VIII. 

WHAT   OF  THE   NIGHT? 

FOR  the  next  few  days  the  old  bookseller 
went  about  his  vocation  in  a  silence 
deeper  than  usual,  selling  lead-pencils  or 
wrapping-paper  or  arithmetics  in  a  half-ab 
straction  of  mind,  as  though  one  hemisphere 
of  his  brain  was  doing  the  petty  work  of 
life,  while  the  other  was  thinking  of  Amoret, 
ever  of  Amoret  His  manuscript  volume 
made  little  progress ;  he  even  reviewed  some 
of  the  fundamental  postulates  of  those  scat 
tered  and  inconsistent  dicta  which  he  had 
ventured  to  call  a  Philosophy  of  Life.  Scat 
tered —  what  of  it?  Could  anything  be  more 
heterogeneous  than  this  thing  we  call  exist 
ence?  Inconsistent?  What  more  improb 
able  than  that  his  little  girl,  —  mere  pure 
spontaneous  living  idyl  of  nature  that  she 
was  —  should  clearly  be  half  infatuated  with 
a  being  of  no  more  soul  or  utility,  he  verily 
believed,  than  one  of  the  little  vitreous  steam- 


What  of  the  Night?  189 

engines  the  glass-blowers  exhibit :  transparent 
and  hollow  motion,  that  is  all. 

Mr.  Welby's  egotism  had  been  thoroughly 
chastened  by  the  experiences  of  life.  Few  find 
it  conducive  to  self-esteem  to  grow  poorer  and 
less  potent  as  years  multiply.  Nor  was  there 
more  than  a  single  grain  of  superstition  in  one 
who  had  for  fifty  years  declared  himself  free 
from  the  fetters  forged  by  the  twin-burners  of 
Servetus,  and  yet  had  refused  to  walk  in  the 
misty  marshes  at  the  foot  of  the  sky-soaring 
mount  of  Transcendentalism.  But  that  single 
grain,  which  neither  his  misfortunes  nor  his 
liberalism  could  make  him  throw  away,  was  a 
latent  belief  that  there  lurked  in  his  brain 
some  unquestionable  power  of  clear-seeing. 
That  his  grandmother  had  been  a  Scotch 
woman  and  the  seventh  child  of  a  seventh 
child  was  to  him  merely  a  laughable  coinci 
dence  ;  but  that  the  intuitive  theory  of  morals 
was  true,  and  that  the  Oversoul  sometimes 
told  the  Undersoul  what  was  and  was  to  be, 
he,  was  forced  to  admit,  or  else  fall  back 
upon  some  sort  of  grim  unspiritual  material 
ism.  And  certain  peculiar  experiences  in  his 
lonely  life  had  convinced  him  that  such  fore- 
tellings  had  really  come  to  him,  now  and  then, 
with  a  peculiar  force  and  significance. 

Well,  if  his  philosophic  insight  or  foresight 


190         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

was  ever  needed,  it  was  needed  now.  That 
Henry  Morland  was  a  soulless  selfishness  he 
had  no  doubt  whatever;  nor  had  he  much 
more  doubt  that  Amoret  —  meeting  for  the 
first  time  a  man  of  unquestionable  intellec 
tuality,  free  from  gross  qualities,  and  appar 
ently  in  need  of  help  —  had  thrown  a  warm, 
yellow  nimbus  of  sainthood  around  a  head 
that  was  at  best  (to  vary  his  steam-engine 
metaphor)  but  marble.  And  now,  by  the 
very  perversity  of  ill-luck,  merely  because  he 
had  sat  on  the  same  side  of  the  boat  in  a  squall, 
Morland  had  seemed  to  Amoret  the  savior  of 
her  life.  Very  likely  somebody  else  would 
have  pulled  her  out  if  he  had  not;  the  squall 
was  quickly  over,  and  the  skipper  or  the 
cleric's  boy  might  have  had  time  to  become 
the  noble  rescuer,  nor  would  Amoret  have 
fallen  in  love  with  either  of  them. 

But  never  mind  the  crookedness  of  events ; 
she  was  alive,  for  which  God  be  praised.  What 
was  now  to  be  done?  To  do  nothing  was  to 
give  Morland  a  great  advantage;  to  warn 
Amoret  against  him  would  be  to  make  her 
miserable  and  probably  force  her  to  choose 
between  a  visibly  dilapidated  grandfather  and 
an  idealized  hero.  Again,  was  he,  Thomas 
Welby,  after  all,  a  jealous  old  curmudgeon, 
wishing  to  keep  a  warm,  bright,  pure  spirit 


What  of  the  Night?  191 

to  himself,  instead  of  letting  her  love  and 
marry  in  the  way  of  all  the  world?  Just 
here,  after  six  hours  of  thought,  the  philoso 
pher  settled  at  least  one  thing :  he  could  and 
would  be  willing  to  think  of  Amoret  as  loving 
and  loved  otherwise  and  elsewhere,  if  all  the 
conditions  were  as  they  should  be.  He  him 
self  had  married,  so  had  his  daughter;  mar 
riage  was  all  very  well  as  a  temporary  expedient, 
though,  like  the  ancient  woman  who  denounced 
Universalism,  we  may  hope  for  something  bet 
ter  than  all  that  in  the  next  world  ;  and  the 
poor  old  man  gave  a  little  chuckle  as  of  re 
viving  spirits,  under  the  influence  of  which,  in 
the  next  hour  or  two,  he  wrote  Amoret  a  brief 
note  which  was  virtually  nothing  more  than  a 
thank  God,  with  an  appended  true  statement 
that  he  had  had  a  very  busy  day  and  would 
soon  write  more  at  length. 

Just  four  petty  customers  crossed  his  well- 
worn  doorstone  on  the  morrow,  and  the  phi 
losopher  was  at  leisure  to  write  his  write  and 
thereby  say  his  say.  He  had  decided,  on  the 
whole,  not  to  take  his  few  immediately  avail 
able  dollars  and  go  to  Harborside  for  a  talk, 
for  he  preferred  to  trust  his  poor  wisdom  to 
an  old  pen  rather  than  an  old  tongue;  and 
after  sleeping  on  it,  he  had  also  determined 
that  he  would  gain  rather  than  lose  by  frankly 


192         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

letting  Amoret  know  that  he  perceived  that 
she  was  virtually  in  love,  and  that  Morland 
was  at  least  "  interested"  —  oh,  how  mean  the 
phrases  !  That  Morland  would  make  Amoret 
but  a  boy's  plaything  he  did  not  fear ;  that  his 
cold  lips  would  turn  the  kiss  of  love  into  the 
kiss  of  death  Mr.  Welby  was  bitterly  appre 
hensive.  But  the  Philosophy  of  Life,  which 
he  was  writing  as  his  one  legacy  to  Amoret, 
was  permeated  with  the  idea  that  last  decisions 
must  rest  with  the  individual ;  he  would  send 
Amoret  some  extracts  from  it,  which  should 
tell  her  she  was  in  a  labyrinth,  give  her  a 
thread  of  help,  and  leave  her  tangled  feet  to 
make  their  own  way  out. 

The  letter  bore  to  Amoret  a  ray  of  sunshine 
from  out  the  grim  clouds  and  miasmatic  fears 
of  Mr.  Welby's  past  twenty-four  hours.  All 
Amoret  read  or  felt,  was  that  her  grandfather 
sent  gratitude,  love,  hope,  interest,  with  an 
added  apprehension  for  Miss  Tetley's  visibly 
declining  health.  So  much  for  the  letter ;  but 
it  enclosed  a  neatly-tied  packet,  made  of  Mr. 
Welby's  most  cherished  1809  hand-made  paper 
which  Amoret  knew  so  well,  sealed  with  his 
old  PVRSVE  VlRTVE  seal,  and  bearing  the 
inscription :  "  Thoughts  for  the  Dawn  of  the 
New  Day ;  to  be  read  next  Sun-day  morning." 
As  Amoret  looked  at  it  long  and  long,  half  in 


What  of  the  Night?  193 

abashed  wonder  and  half  in  timid  fear  that  the 
dear  old  writer  had  guessed  a  secret  she  re 
fused  to  know  herself,  she  noticed  the  glitter 
of  some  grains  of  the  familiar  black  sand  he 
always  used  to  dry  his  writing-ink.  Glitter  or 
black  obscurity,  what  was  the  message  to 
mean? 

Saturday  night  Morland  called  earlier  than 
usual.  In  his  manner  alternated  a  tenderness 
and  a  gayety  which  had  been  somewhat 
strange  to  his  former  moods.  He  had  never 
taken  the  slightest  advantage  of  the  incident 
of  the  rescue,  warding  off  all  allusions  to  it; 
and  to-night,  though  Miss  Tetley,  confined  to 
her  room,  left  Morland  and  Amoret  alone,  he 
did  not  repeat,  when  an  accidental  remark 
of  Amoret's  gave  him  opportunity,  any  such 
words  as  he  had  uttered  when  first  he  drew 
her  from  the  water.  Only,  through  all  their 
random  talk  about  the  cruel  foam,  the  un 
inhabited  moon,  the  canals  of  Mars,  marsh- 
rosemary,  Wordsworth's  Recluse,  Morland's 
own  unpublished  essay  on  the  Poets  as  Pessi 
mists,  two  new  summer  novels,  or  the  question 
whether  purple  or  yellow  is  the  more  queenly 
color,  there  was  a  sort  of  kindly  companion 
ship  on  both  sides  that  bespoke  a  mental  ease 
that  might,  it  would  seem,  become  permanent. 
They  were  getting  to  take  each  other  for 
13 


194         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

granted.  When  Morland  started  home  his 
good-bye  handshake  became  a  sort  of  close 
little  clasp  that  was  in  no  way  presumptuous; 
and  he  said:  "  A uf  wiedersehen ;  one  can't 
improve  on  that,  if  two  of  our  poets  have  made 
it  hackneyed."  Amoret  retorted :  "  Which  is, 
being  interpreted,  au  revoir ;  how  easy  it  is  to 
be  polyglot !  "  And  she  stood  at  the  door 
until  his  last  footfall  fell  out  of  hearing  as  he 
turned  around  the  bend  in  the  road. 

Next  Sunday  morning  Amoret  took  her 
grandfather's  little  paper  packet  of  thoughts, 
and  went  alone  to  her  favorite  rock  by  the 
sea.  The  warm  sun  was  high,  but  the  air  was 
full  of  that  sweet  combination  of  ocean  salt- 
ness  and  inland  breeze  that  drops  from  the 
skies  as  a  double  gift  on  the  waves  and  crags 
and  hayfields  and  gnarled  appletrees  of  south 
ern  Maine  or  the  tip  of  Cape  Ann.  The  rich 
ancient  serenity  of  the  outer  world  befitted 
her  inward,  tender,  though  tremulous  content, 
as  she  broke  the  well-known  seal,  opened 
the  yellowed  sheets,  and  read  in  the  old 
man's  scrupulously  clear  and  not  yet  senile 
chirography :  — 

There  are  three  parts  of  life  :  vague  before  earthly 
birth ;  vague  after  death  ;  dark  or  clear  in  the  flesh, 
as  we  choose. 

There  are,  likewise,  three  kinds  of  love  :    sensu- 


What  of  the  Night?  195 

ous,  intellectual,  spiritual :  the  first  dies,  the  second 
starves,  the  third  triumphs  over  space,  time,  and 
matter. 

Life  is  complex,  from  the  new-born  babe's  first 
glance.  What  will  you  take,  —  the  moon,  or  the 
rattle,  or  mother's  eyes  ? 

Let  us  act  what  we  think,  yet  learn  that  if  love  is 
law,  law  is  love. 

Take  time ;  God's  minutes  are  eternities. 

Life  in  life  and  death  in  life  —  which? 

There  is  no  sin  to  hearts  that  love,  says  the  poet. 
There  is  no  love  to  hearts  that  sin. 

The  nobility  of  love  returns  to  bless  you,  though 
you  learn  that  the  one  to  whom  you  would  fain  have 
given  it  never  really  lived. 

Remember  that  the  highest  woman  is  purer  than 
the  highest  man,  save  one  ;  do  not  worship  your  own 
image,  and  dream  that  you  have  found  the  second 
perfect  man. 

Are  you  doubtful?  Wait.  Are  you  sure?  Then 
you  can  afford  to  wait. 

Youth  is  always  detached ;  it  stands  out  alone ;  it 
has  no  background,  no  history,  no  intermingling  of 
fibres  with  other  lives  ;  and  to  it  experience  stretches 
both  "hands  in  vain. 

The  patience  of  hope  is  far  easier  than  the 
patience  of  an  immitigable  past. 

Oh,  for  a  glimpse  of  the  cool  deep  mind  of  God, 
in  our  iron  darkness  and  silence ! 

Love  is  the  one  eternal  thing  in  the  universe,  but 
yet  so  fragile  that  it  may  be  shattered  forever  by  the 
blow  of  a  look. 


196         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

Amoret  had  begun  to  read  with  a  little 
flutter  in  her  heart,  a  chill  at  the  tips  of  her 
fingers,  and  a  flush  on  her  cheeks  that  deepened 
into  crimson  and  then  whitened  into  pallor  as 
she  went  on.  The  real  meaning  of  what  her 
grandfather  had  written  appeared  slowly  in 
her  face,  like  the  spots  that  emerge  from  a 
hitherto  monotonous  negative  in  the  develop 
ing  bath ;  and,  like  them,  the  brief  clearness 
of  the  picture  faded  into  obscurity  as  she  laid 
the  little  packet  of  manuscript  on  the  rock  at 
her  side,  and  looked  long  and  long  at  the  blue 
water,  —  now  shimmering  and  speckled  in  the 
wind,  save  for  one  sheet  of  smoothness  far  out 
toward  the  southeast  horizon.  She  seemed  to 
have  grown  ten  years  older,  yet  not  ten  years 
wiser  or  happier.  Was  she  in  love,  —  love 
that  binds  all  or  soon  or  late?  She  had  never 
connected  it  with  her  own  existence  or  future, 
save  as  she  loved  her  grandfather,  the  birds 
and  flowers,  the  hills  and  waves,  and  the  What 
ever  that  made  and  continued  them.  She 
understood  the  old  man's  patiently  elaborated 
enigmas  at  once ;  all  her  life  she  had  known 
his  fondness  for  putting  the  moral  universe 
into  paradoxes  or  pithinesses,  and  had  partly 
humored  him  and  partly  revered  him.  Never 
mind  the  form  of  these  latest  Thoughts ;  what 
they  meant  was  that  her  grandfather  thought 


What  of  the  Night?  197 

she  was  beginning  to  love  Mr.  Morland  — 
Amoret  framed  his  name  with  difficulty,  even 
in  her  own  mind  —  that  Mr.  Morland  was  pos 
sibly  but  half  what  she  fancied  him  ;  and  that 
she  must  choose.  Oh,  the  pity,  the  perplexity, 
the  glory !  Was  it  all  a  woe  or  a  boon?  Had 
her  life  been  embittered  by  the  drops  of  trial, 
or  was  it  now  to  be  consecrated  by  the  bap 
tism  of  a  new  spirit?  Who  could  tell?  Not 
the  ripening  morning;  not  the  leisurely  notes 
of  the  bell-buoy  across  the  channel :  "  Only 
I,  I,  I,  all  alone  with  God,"  thought  Amoret, 
as  she  lifted  her  heavy  limbs  from  their  rocky 
seat,  and  half  wearily  began  her  homeward 
walk,  "  but  neither  God  nor  I  just  now." 
And  a  placid  cow,  chewing  the  cud  on  the 
sunny  slope  of  the  earthworks,  turned  her  a 
lazy  sidewise  look,  while  a  grasshopper  whirred 
resonantly  in  her  path. 

During  the  next  three  or  four  weeks  both 
Amoret  and  Morland  had  plenty  of  time  to 
think,  and  their  thinking  was  often  of  each 
other.  The  next  time  Morland  called  at  the 
cottage  it  happened  that  Amoret  and  Miss 
Tetley  had  gone  to  drive ;  and  a  few  days 
later,  by  the  orders  of  the  elder  lady's  physi 
cian,  they  suddenly  started  on  a  fortnight's 
trip  to  the  mountains,  for  the  gain  of  upland 
air,  before  the  beginning  of  the  school  year. 


198          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

Morland's  prevalent  mood,  during  the  inter 
val  of  the  absence  of  the  two,  was  chiefly  one 
of  annoyance,  the  more  intense  because  it  was 
doubled.  Constantly  —  as  Rodney  had  been 
—  accustomed  to  deal  with  the  world  from  the 
standpoint  of  self,  he  was  similarly  vexed 
that  an  association  which  had  become  a  mild 
but  now  sufficiently  steady  pleasure,  should 
be  intermitted  without  his  own  choice,  and  he 
was  still  more  annoyed  that  he,  a  mature  man 
and  a  sociological  critic,  who  prided  himself 
on  some  supposed  emancipation  from  the 
cheaper  and  more  obvious  human  emotions, 
should  be  wasting  so  much  time  over  a  girl. 
One  never  is  more  angry  at  others  than  when 
he  has  cheapened  himself  in  his  own  mind; 
and,  in  Morland's  view,  it  seemed  a  sort  of 
debasement  to  feel  any  need  of  Miss  Wenton's 
society.  Dangling  is  all  very  well  if  you  are 
the  conscious  dangler;  but  when  volition 
becomes  conditioned,  the  universe  of  self  is 
somewhat  belittled. 

So  it  was  that,  one  evening,  he  lit  his  cigar 
with  some  inner  acerbity,  and  indulged  in  a 
little  light  introspection,  after  eight  hours  of 
hack  work  at  his  newspaper  desk,  for  it  was 
press-day,  and  no  time  was  left  him  to  take 
up  his  latest  anonymous  essay  to  be  entitled 
"Wordsworth  as  Duffer."  What  was  the 


What  of  the  Night?  199 

matter  with  him,  anyway?  Was  he  in  love 
with  a  pretty  schoolma'am  because  her  waist 
was  graceful  and  her  rose-leaf  lips  innocently 
pathetic  in  their  curl  ?  He  might  better  leave 
them  to  the  admiration  of  the  callow  colle 
gians  who  were  at  this  minute,  doubtless, 
inveigling  for  an  introduction  to  her  on  the 
Profile  House  piazza.  Was  it  her  mental  bril 
liancy  that  attracted  him  ?  Certainly  she  was 
an  "original,"  which  was  something,  espe 
cially  for  one  with  theories  concerning  the 
social  evolution  of  monotonous  mediocrity. 
Was  he  flattered  by  her  evident  interest  in 
himself?  If  so,  the  more  fool  he  to  admit  it. 
But  he  was  the  preserver  of  her  life !  and  he 
gave  a  little  laugh  as  he  knocked  off  the  ashes 
of  his  cigar,  carefully  laid  it  on  the  edge  of 
the  window-sill  so  that  it  should  not  roll  off, 
and  stepped  to  a  cupboard  to  prepare  a  small 
glass  of  old  bourbon  whiskey  and  soda  water 
— "  alcohol  in  its  most  beneficent  form,  as 
every  scientific  man  well  knows,"  said  Mor- 
land  to  himself.  "  A  true  hero  !"  said  he,  as 
he  sipped  the  last  of  the  pervasive  beverage. 
"Lucky  enough  that  I  didn't  have  to  jump 
overboard,  for  I  might  have  got  drowned  — 
and  I  want  to  go  to  Europe  again  before  my 
final  exit  from  everything  everywhere. " 

By  the  time  the  first  copy  of  his  innocuous 


2OO         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

weekly  was  brought  up  damp  from  the  press 
room  the  cigar  and  the  soda-whiskey  had 
clarified  his  mind  to  the  extent  of  a  definite 
reflection  that  he  might  as  well  let  things 
drift.  "  I  am  not  responsible  for  the  universe, 
anyway,"  added  Morland  to  Morland.  "I 
never  asked  to  be  born,  and  dying  would  save 
a  good  deal  of  trouble ;  why  not  take  things 
as  they  are?  But  if  anybody  tried  to  cross 
me  about  little  Amoret,  or  to  marry  her  in 
dove-love  fashion,  I  'd  really  like  to  spoil  his 
nonsense  somehow."  And  then  he  said  to 
the  foreman  of  the  pressroom,  who  had  just 
come  in,  "I  think  you  'd  better  ask  Carter  to 
pay  a  little  more  for  the  next  ink  he  buys;  I 
don't  care  so  much  about  paper,  but  this  ink 
is  rather  wishy-washy.  Good-night." 

As  for  Amoret,  when  the  train  skirted  the 
clear,  cool  ponds  and  rolled  through  the  sweet 
meadows  that  lie  to  the  eastward  of  the  White 
Mountain  range,  and  at  length  climbed  into 
the  picturesque  defiles  of  the  Notch,  her  eyes 
turned  to  the  new  wonders  with  an  elation 
that  not  even  her  ever-present  problem  could 
quell.  Like  the  railway  itself,  if  she  now 
crawled  at  the  foot  of  majestic  heights,  she 
could  at  least  win  by  the  courage  of  confident 
abasement.  In  her  mind,  when  she  thought 
of  Morland  and  of  her  grandfather's  plain 


What  of  the  Night  ?  201 

warning  to  love  worthily,  there  seemed  to  rise 
misty  and  cloud-crowned  summits  of  eternal 
joy, — the  joy  of  spiritual  triumph;  yet  as, 
on  her  railway  journey,  the  far-down  brooks 
beneath  the  trestles  still  sang  cheerily  on 
their  path  to  the  sea,  so  her  own  obedience 
must  concern  itself  with  every-day  duties. 
One  fact  was  a  puzzle :  her  definite  sense  of 
humiliation  that  her  grandfather  should  have 
felt  and  said  that  she  was  in  love  —  she,  the 
lonely  little  daughter  of  the  soil,  the  self- 
centred  friend  of  thousand-minded  nature, 
the  lover  only  of  books  and  the  ideal.  A 
constantly-recurring  impulse  was  to  write  to 
him  a  letter  of  mere  conventionality,  and 
then,  on  her  return,  banish  Morland  to  the 
suburbs  of  her  good  pleasure,  whatever  pain 
it  cost.  Against  this  plan  struggled  two 
thoughts,  —  the  one  that  it  would  be  a  real 
and  seemingly  unnecessary  trial  to  lose  the 
society  of  the  deepest  mind  that  had  ever 
opened  to  her  own;  and  the  other,  that  it 
might  be  a  wrong  to  refuse  to  try  to  throw 
some  sunlight  into  the  dim,  sad  caverns  of  a 
brain  that  seemed  to  need  some  accession  of 
the  spiritual  to  brighten  its  mere  mentality. 
That  some  little  part  of  nature's  soul  lay  in 
her  own  she  was  vain  enough  to  think,  after 
all  these  years ;  that  it  was  a  duty  to  show  it 


2O2  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

and  share  it,  in  any  poor  way,  she  devoutly 
believed.  Mere  pity  she  could  never  trans 
form  into  love,  but  duty  seemed  divine,  and 
it  had  almost  come  to  appear  a  clear  duty  to 
discover  and  uplift  the  true  Henry  Morland 
—  for,  said  she,  a  child  can  sometimes  stir  a 
great  rock.  This  done,  he  might  go  his  way 
and  she  hers;  all  of  which  fine  theory  or  half- 
formed  intention  she  duly  set  forth  in  a  long 
letter  to  her  grandfather,  written  out  of  doors 
beneath  the  tutelar  presence  of  the  august  and 
immitigable  Profile,  which  gave  her  no  small 
comfort  in  her  present  doubts.  Then,  with 
the  resiliency  of  girlhood,  she  proceeded  to 
enjoy  every  minute  of  the  short  weeks  of  her 
mountain  experiences  in  woods,  by  pools, 
through  flumes  and  trails,  and,  best  of  all,  in 
golden  sunsets  or  mute  moonrises.  If  only 
cousin  Lodema  would  get  well  a  little  faster ! 
but,  of  course,  the  benefit  of  the  change  could 
not  come  all  at  once.  At  any  rate,  Amoret's 
cheer  was  her  cousin's  best  medicine.  One 
evening,  after  a  day  of  singular  weakness, 
Miss  Tetley,  for  the  first  time,  spoke  of 
death,  and  half  whispered  the  lines:  — 

"  If  my  bark  sinks,  'tis  to  another  sea  ;  " 

but  Amoret's  laugh  rang  back  with  the 
remark,  "Oh,  no,  dear;  the  girls  won't  lose 


What  of  the  Night  ?  203 

you  for  many  a  year;  school  teachers  should 
quote,  instead,  that  other  Concord  line :  — 

" '  They  reckon  ill  who  leave  me  out.' " 

The  days  of  the  vacation  drew  to  a  close. 
Amoret  had  enjoyed  all  their  variety  and 
novelty  in  her  own  way.  Essentially  lonely 
from  earliest  childhood,  she  yet  found  a 
double  pleasure  in  life  because  of  her  dramatic 
sense  of  the  time,  place,  circumstance  in 
which  events  or  people  stood  or  moved. 
This  sense,  which  sometimes  amounted v  to 
anticipatory  memory,  at  first  had  led  her  to 
try  to  arrange  her  environment  with  a  some 
what  fussy  exactitude,  or,  when  she  could  not, 
unduly  to  centre  her  thoughts  upon  herself; 
but  later  years  had  made  her  perceive  more 
clearly  the  artless  unconsciousness  of  true 
beauty,  and  the  fact  that  though  man  must 
painstakingly  grow,  his  growth  should  be 
toward  spontaneous  loveliness.  The  baby 
wishes  everything  to  suit  his  whim,  and 
cries  for  the  moon;  but  the  saint's  halo  is 
around  his  own  head.  So,  if  Amoret  had 
less  freedom  than  in  the  old  up-river  days  in 
the  graveyard,  she  also  had  found  more;  for, 
in  learning  the  bitterness  of  the  problem  of 
choice,  she  was  getting  to  see  the  joy  of  a 
broadened  world.  And  yet,  the  wider  her 


2O4  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

world  and  the  stronger  her  sense  of  the 
beauty  of  helping  others  —  her  cousin,  her 
scholars,  Morland,  a  lame  bird,  a  one-legged 
grasshopper,  a  jaded  horse,  a  broken  flower- 
stalk,  or  a  nest  of  deserted  mouselings  —  the 
keener  was  her  knowledge,  half  piteous  and 
half  joyous,  that  nobody  knew  her  real  self, 
in  its  thoughts  and  hopes.  The  true  Amoret, 
after  all,  was  far  within  her  fettering  body, 
with  its  clumsy  scheme  of  words  and  looks 
and  hands  and  feet.  She  had  always  felt  that 
if  her  mother,  or  Jesus,  or  some  such  rare 
person,  could  come  to  life  again,  either  of 
them  would  understand  it  all.  That  was  why 
the  stony  calm  of  the  big  face  on  the  moun 
tain  seemed  so  restful.  "  You  and  I,"  she  said 
to  herself,  "partly  know  each  other." 

When  they  returned  to  Harborside  there 
was  plenty  to  do.  Miss  Tetley  was  still  rather 
feeble,  so  another  teacher  was  engaged,  and 
on  Amoret  really  fell  the  charge  of  the  school, 
though  neither  the  public  nor  the  preceptress 
knew  it.  There  were  more  girls  than  ever  in 
the  old  house,  and,  thanks  to  Amoret,  more 
sunshine,  which  Morland  noticed  when  he 
made  his  first  prompt  afternoon  call.  He 
got  and  he  gave  a  cordial  welcome,  but  in  that 
and  subsequent  meetings  he  felt  that  he  had 
somehow  lost  ground.  At  any  rate,  he  was 


What  of  the  Night  ?  205 

no  longer  master  of  the  situation.  Amoret 
was  busy,  very  busy;  acquaintanceships  settle 
down,  after  a  while;  of  course  she  could  not 
make  him  a  declaration  of  love  or  proffer  him 
a  certificate  of  admiration.  But  it  was  clear 
that  Amoret,  for  some  reason,  with  all  her 
simplicity  and  cordiality,  was  not  to  him  the 
Amoret  of  the  summer;  there  was  about  her 
an  intangible  but  vexing  air  of  innocent  in 
accessibility,  or  what  you  will.  Some  prying 
devil,  thought  he,  has  been  warning  her  to 
make  me  play  my  cards,  and  show  that  there 
are  trumps  in  my  hand ;  if  she  'd  been  let 
alone  I  could  have  twisted  her  about  my  little 
finger  for  three  years  to  come.  "  Oh, " 
thought  Amoret,  "  if  he  would  give  me  a 
chance  to  see  and  to  help  his  best  self!  I  '11 
make  a  chance  one  of  these  days,  for  there 
must  be  a  great  soul  behind  such  a  mind." 
And  so  their  interviews,  though  nominally  of 
the  familiar  old  summer  sort,  went  along 
somewhat  unsatisfactorily  to  both  of  them  for 
two^or  three  months;  and  Amoret  could  only 
dwell  on  her  own  inner  test  principle,  rein 
forced  as  it  had  been  by  Mr.  Welby's  senten 
tious  philosophy,  and  say  to  herself,  "  If  he 
is  what  I  believe  him  to  be,  I  shall  sometime 
know  it  at  the  full." 

If  but  progress,  in  this  world,  would  sym- 


206         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

metrically  follow  commencement,  what  an 
advantage  to  the  evolution  of  things  !  A  hun 
dred  thousand  barnacle-eggs  swish  about  in 
the  limitless  ocean,  and  only  a  dozen  catch 
hold  of  a  rock,  there  to  live  a  life  that  is 
merely  not  death.  We  visit  a  new  town,  and 
in  one  day  see  it  all,  leaving  poor  room  for 
expansion  in  a  twelve-month  to  come.  A 
fresh  friendship  promises  all  potencies,  and 
we  learn  too  late  that  we  have  travelled  over 
the  little  soul-plot  at  the  start,  and  can  but 
retread  the  familiar  round.  The  child,  a  poet 
at  five,  a  soldier  at  ten,  a  lover  at  fifteen,  a 
wiseacre  at  twenty,  declines  and  decays  at 
last,  and  so  dies  and  is  buried  out  of  mind 
with  the  remark,  "It  was  in  the  order  of 
nature."  "That  is  not  life,  it's  mere  vege 
tation  ;  and  lacking  at  that  the  patient  pleas 
antness  of  a  grass-blade,"  Amoret  used  to 
say,  almost  angrily,  when  she  saw  so  many 
people  about  her  to  whom  her  gospel  of  growth 
was  mere  chatter.  As  toward  Morland,  once 
in  a  while,  as  the  winter  waned,  she  came 
into  a  mood  of  indignation  that  such  a  man 
should  need  to  be  helped;  and  once,  for  a 
blazing  quarter  of  an  hour,  she  fairly  hated 
him  because  she  was  satisfied  that,  when  she 
had  been  pouring  forth  her  noblest  ideals,  he 
had  been  "  drawing  her  out "  by  pretended 


What  of  the  Night?  207 

denials,  and  smiling  in  his  sleeve  at  all  her 
eloquence.  But,  on  the  whole,  meanwhile, 
neither  could  banish  the  other  from  frequent 
thought;  Amoret,  more  than  ever,  because 
she  was  really  increasingly  interested  in  the 
complex  problems  discussed  in  the  essays  he 
begged  to  read  to  her  for  advice  and  correc 
tion,  —  he  was  writing  a  requested  series,  for 
the  London  Semi-Monthly  Review,  on  "  Prob 
lems  of  Mind  and  Morals;"  and  Morland, 
because,  for  some  occult  reason,  he  would 
feel  his  essentially  small  world  still  more 
shrunken  without  Amoret.  In  fact,  they  were 
drawn  together  by  one  common  bond,  namely, 
Amoret's  interest  in  him  and  his  interest  in 
himself. 

Over  against  her  wish,  almost  devout,  to 
consecrate  him  to  all  good  things,  beginning 
with  the  ethical  gain  to  the  world  from  the 
Problems  articles,  was  a  somewhat  strength- 
ning  idea,  on  his  part,  of  making  Amoret 
marry  him,  if  necessary  to  keep  her  from 
marrying  somebody  else,  or  from  throwing 
herself  away  on  some  dream  of  philanthropic 
helpfulness,  of  which  fate  for  her  he  was 
almost  equally  afraid.  That  he  could  make 
her  marry  him  he  was  satisfied,  if  he  put  the 
demand  on  the  ground  of  duty  to  a  struggling 
soul,  and  to  other  strugglers  whom  they  two 


208  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

could  influence.  But  meanwhile  he  very  well 
knew  that  his  one  rival  was  Amoret's  better 
self,  and  he  was  now  satisfied  that  his  path 
to  the  ownership  of  her  was  greatly  hindered 
by  that  old  fool  of  an  egotistic  potterer  up  the 
river.  The  journalist's  cleverness  was  as 
quick  as  the  philosopher's  insight,  and  if  the 
bookseller  read  Morland's  selfishness  before 
he  ever  saw  him,  Morland  quite  as  easily 
divined  from  Amoret's  occasional  admiring 
quotations  that  the  bookseller  was  constantly 
stuffing  her  head  with  foolish  notions  of  im 
practicable  perfection.  "What  damned  non 
sense  the  Golden  Rule  is !  "  said  he  one  day, 
in  the  freedom  of  his  editorial  room,  after  he 
had,  with  peculiar  difficulty,  restrained  himself 
from  expressing  his  real  opinion  of  a  letter 
of  Mr.  Welby's  which  Amoret  had  read  to 
him,  with  the  remark  that  she  thought  her 
grandfather  a  living  illustration  of  that  aureal 
maxim.  "  Put  into  practice,  it  would  reduce 
the  world  to  a  dead  level  in  twenty-four  hours. 
Evolution  proves  the  individual,  and  not 
society,  to  be  the  germ  of  improvement,  and 
the  individual  must  get  for  himself  what  best 
suits  him.  I  '11  go  up  and  talk  to  the  old 
fellow  sometime;  I  can  convert  him  easily 
enough,  for  he  's  liberal  in  a  sort  of  way." 
And  Morland  did  go  to  Bellwood  one  week 


What  of  the  Night  ?  209 

in  spring,  when  Amoret  had  repaired  thither 
for  a  visit  to  the  old  home.  By  chance,  he 
said,  he  must  go  to  the  north  of  the  state  on 
business  for  his  paper.  Might  he  stop  off  a 
day  or  two  on  his  return  and  see  the  good  man 
and  the  old  elm-shaded  streets  of  which  he 
had  heard  so  much  ?  Amoret  could  but  assent, 
and  the  three  were  therefore  together  in  Bell- 
wood,  —  Morland  in  the  biggest  chamber  of 
the  Bellwood  House.  "  Grandpa  will  see  what 
he  really  is,"  said  Amoret  to  herself.  "Now 
I  shall  prove  that  I  am  right,"  thought  the 
bookseller.  "I'll  take  his  measure  and  get 
rid  of  him  somehow,"  reflected  Morland. 
After  two  days  of  talk  between  the  elder  and 
the  younger  man,  as  warm  as  sunlight  glitter 
ing  on  ice,  Amoret  felt  that  they  surely  must 
respect  each  other's  powers;  but  she  did  wish 
they  could  seem  to  like  each  other  a  little 
better.  Grandfather,  she  feared,  was  confirmed 
in  his  unswerving  prejudice;  and  Morland,  as 
he  beheld  at  close  quarters  the  girl's  affection 
for  the  old  man,  only  consoled  himself  with 
the  evident  proposition  that  the  venerable 
relic  couldn't  last  long. 

But  the  ancient  sun  settled  all  their  difficul 
ties  at  last  —  Sol,  reverend  outpourer  of  light 
and  life  on  a  waiting  world,  that  sheds  its 
gracious  glory  even  on  the  sterile  and  airless 


2io  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

satellite  which  gratefully  becomes  a  silver 
mirror  hung  on  the  wall  of  night.  The 
steadily  strengthening  rays  of  the  luminary 
slowly  spread  from  south  to  north,  and  the 
snows  of  the  wintry  hills  grew  shrunken  and 
hollow  and  thin,  and  at  length  dissolved  in 
chilly  waters  that  filled  the  brooks  that  swelled 
the  rivers  running  southward  from  pine- 
environed  lakes.  Once  more,  in  the  perennial 
miracle  of  a  new  heavens  and  a  new  earth,  the 
old  stream  behind  the  bookseller's  shop  began 
to  rise  and  crack  its  weakened  ice-coat. 
There  was  open  water  on  the  banks,  and  the 
lines  of  disused  sleigh-tracks  from  shore  to 
shore  showed  that  the  ice-bridge  was  but  a 
memory.  Then  there  appeared  a  patch  of 
smooth  black  water  below  the  island,  and  at 
last,  with  stately  swing,  or  complaining 
creak,  the  ice  began  to  go  out.  And  still  the 
river  rose,  as  the  thicker  masses  came  down 
from  the  farther  north ;  rose  little  by  little  to 
the  tops  of  the  wharves,  then  stretched  back 
toward  the  foundations  of  the  shops,  while  in 
the  middle  of  the  stream  one  straight,  desper 
ate  current  swept  steadily  on,  with  never  a 
thought  of  the  eddies  on  either  side,  and 
indifferent  whether  the  cakes  it  hurried  for 
ward  were  a  handbreadth  long  or  a  hundred 
feet. 


What  of  the  Night?  211 

The  snows  of  that  winter  had  been  unusu 
ally  heavy,  especially  in  the  woody  regions  of 
the  interior,  and  the  spring  floods  were  corre 
spondingly  vigorous  when  the  breakup  came. 
An  ice-dam,  too,  had  formed  at  the  Point, 
three  miles  below,  and  the  water  speedily 
backed  up  behind  a  barrier  that  for  the  present 
seemed  as  strong  as  granite.  Hour  by  hour 
it  crept  nearer  the  cellars  of  the  Water  street 
stores,  which,  indeed,  were  usually  wet  at  this 
time  of  year,  and  sometimes  flooded.  The 
occupants  of  the  buildings  on  the  river  line 
knew  what  to  expect  in  any  ordinary  freshet ; 
but  Mr.  Welby  did  not  worry,  for  it  was  long 
since  the  basement  of  the  old  printing  estab 
lishment  had  been  used  for  any  service  more 
important  than  that  of  a  woodshed,  and  now 
there  was  left  in  it  little  more  than  half  a  cord 
of  sawed  and  split  and  a  modest  pile  of  green 
four-foot  wood,  to  which  a  brief  bath  would 
bring  no  lasting  injury.  Others  along  the 
street,  however,  were  not  so  fortunate;  and 
as  evening  deepened,  they  shook  their  heads 
and  hoped  the  ice-dam  would  break  before 
morning,  else  there  must  be  some  moving  of 
goods.  The  idea  of  moving  them  that  night 
was  not  in  accordance  with  Bellwood  prece 
dents. 

Still  the  surly  river  swelled  backwards  and 


212  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

upwards;  and  if  Amoret  had  not  known,  by 
annual  experience,  the  firmness  of  the  granite 
foundations  of  the  heavy  brick  building,  she 
might  have  felt  nervous  about  going  to  sleep 
near  such  a  neighbor  as  the  icy  and  turbulent 
torrent.  But  often,  in  childhood,  had  the 
swish  and  the  grinding  of  the  flood  lulled  her 
to  sleep;  and  at  nine  o'clock,  when  Morland 
went  home,  and  grandfather  and  granddaugh 
ter  went  to  bed,  tired  by  a  day  of  talk,  and 
walk,  and  watch,  the  river  was  yet  eight  or 
ten  feet  below  the  legend  chiselled  on  the 
south  wall  of  the  old  printery  recording  the 
unprecedented  height  attained  by  the  great 
freshet  of  1811. 

By  twelve  o'clock,  however,  Amoret  was 
wakened  by  excited  talk  and  shouted  orders  in 
the  street,  and  by  an  unfamiliar  smell,  half 
earthy,  half  chemical.  Dressing  hastily  and 
going  to  the  back  window,  she  looked  out  on 
what  she  could  see  of  the  immitigable  sweep 
of  dark  waters.  A  strong  gust  of  warm  south 
wind  slammed  the  half-open  shutter  back  in 
her  face,  but  not  before  she  saw  dull  masses 
of  smoke  pouring  out  of  the  back  windows  of 
the  building  next  but  one  north,  —  the  quarters 
of  a  dealer  whose  former  sellings  of  E.  and 
W.  I.  Goods  and  Groceries,  as  recorded  on  a 
battered  and  scarcely  legible  sign  high  up  on 


What  of  the  Night?  213 

the  front  of  his  building,  had  yielded  to  the 
more  aristocratic  vending  of  Flour,  Grain, 
Coal,  Lime,  and  Cement.  This  time  the 
freshet  had  literally  caught  him  napping,  with 
fifty  barrels  of  lime  on  a  floor  usually  safe,  but 
now  reached  by  the  quick  upward  tide.  The 
lime  slacked,  the  hot,  stifling  smoke  made  it 
impossible  to  hoist  more  than  a  few  barrels 
out  of  the  pit,  and  soon  the  waters,  in  grim 
paradox,  set  the  ancient  warehouse  on  fire,  — 
a  dead,  steady,  inaccessible,  sizzling,  smoking 
conflagration,  that  fed  on  the  dry  timbers  and 
was  fanned  by  the  wind  that  swept  freely 
through  the  windows  just  opened  to  let  out 
the  suffocating  fumes.  That  most  fearful  of 
country  cries,  "  Fire !  fire ! "  rose  on  the 
street,  first  from  a  few  excited  throats,  and 
then  from  many,  as  boys  and  half-dressed  men 
rushed  down  the  highway,  deserted  as  usual  at 
that  late  Bellwood  hour.  Then  the  Orthodox 
bell  began  to  ring  in  alarmist,  secular  fashion, 
so  different  from  its  decorous  Sunday  call,  and 
by  the  time  the  smaller  bell  in  the  Calvinist 
Baptist  steeple  followed  suit,  the  two  hand 
fire-engines  of  the  village  rattled  on  their  way 
to  the  scene,  the  Lion  a  little  ahead;  she  was 
an  older  tub  than  the  Niagara,  but  had  more 
of  "  the  boys  "  —  perennial  youths  from  twenty 
to  sixty  years  of  age  —  in  her  company. 


214         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

"Water  had  begun  the  fire;  let  water,  by 
hydropathic  homoeopathy,  put  it  out,"  said 
Squire  Bennett.  But  the  situation  was  too 
serious  for  anybody  to  pay  attention  to  his 
joke.  The  south  wind,  though  warm,  was 
now  a  gale,  the  sky  was  black,  the  front  of  the 
warehouse  was  half  invisible  for  smoke,  and 
at  length  little  flames  appeared  through  the 
round  hole  of  a  wooden  shutter  on  the  second 
story  front.  The  firemen  of  one  engine  car 
ried  their  hose  up  through  a  building  north 
of  that  first  attacked  and  began  to  play  on  the 
roof,  while  those  of  the  other  undertook  the 
protection  of  property  on  the  street.  All 
thoughts  of  saving  the  structure  already  on 
fire  were  now  given  up. 

Amoret  had  waked  her  grandfather,  who  did 
not  lose  his  head,  though  for  sixty  years  he 
had  never  seen  danger  in  the  familiar  row 
now  so  imperilled.  The  south  wind  seemed 
to  leave  his  own  quarters  safe,  and  telling 
Amoret  not  to  stay  in  the  building,  and  not  to 
go  too  near  the  fire,  he  ran  as  fast  as  his  thin 
legs  would  carry  him  to  help  remove  other 
folks'  goods  in  the  apparent  path  of  disaster, 
should,  as  on  the  whole  seemed  probable, 
the  flames  not  be  confined  to  their  source. 
Busily  enough  did  he  and  his  old  friend  the 
grocer  toil  in  getting  ready  for  the  worst  in 


What  of  the  Night?  215 

the  shop  of  the  latter;  everybody  else  was 
too  busy,  or  too  excited,  or  too  curious  to  give 
them  any  help.  "  You  'd  better  watch  your 
own  place;  you've  thought  of  yourself  last 
ever  since  you  were  born,"  said  Mr.  Hendrick- 
son,  in  a  shrill  voice,  as  with  trembling  hands 
he  gathered  into  his  arms  an  account-book, 
a  tea-canister,  and  a  small  pair  of  scales. 

"Oh,  no,"  said  the  bookseller,  "I'm  all 
right,  and  you  may  be  all  wrong. " 

Meanwhile  Morland  had  hurried  down  from 
the  hotel  and  speedily  met  anxious-faced 
Amoret,  key  in  hand,  on  the  corner  opposite 
the  book-shop.  "Oh,  Mr.  Morland,"  said 
she,  "you  didn't  have  to  save  my  life  the 
second  time,  did  you?  but  do  you  think  our 
place  will  burn?  I  don't  dare  leave  it  or 
stay  in  it,  and  grandpa  has  gone  somewhere. 
Won't  you  take  this  key,  though  the  door's 
open,  while  I  go  and  hunt  him,  and  then  I  '11 
be  right  back  if  anything  happens. "  Amoret' s 
mind,  to  tell  the  truth,  was  for  the  moment 
in  t^e  state  of  that  of  Saint  Peter  on  the 
mount.  "And  here  's  grandfather's  pet  book 
of  writing,"  added  she;  "I  was  sure  if  any 
thing  happened  he  'd  want  it  most  of  all,  so  I 
ran  up  stairs  and  got  it  out  of  the  desk  in  the 
dark ;  I  knew  just  where  it  was.  Do  keep  it 
for  him;  you're  a  man  and  I'm  only  a 


216  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

woman;  and  don't  let  anything  happen  to  it 
for  the  world. "  And  she  started  away. 

"Amoret,  Amoret,"  said  Morland,  for  the 
first  time  calling  her  by  her  Christian  name 
as,  whelmed  with  an  irresistible  passion,  he 
seized  her  hand  in  a  vise-like  grip,  "you've 
given  me  his  old  Philosophy  book  that  he 
values  most  in  the  world  save  one  thing,  and 
that 's  yourself.  Give  me  that,  too,  and  I  '11 
worship  book,  heart,  and  him  all  the  rest  of 
the  days  of  all  of  us." 

A  gust  of  the  wind  suddenly  veering  to  the 
north  had  blown  his  hat  from  his  head.  The 
glare  of  the  fire  shone  full  on  his  pale  face, 
marked  with  an  intensity  of  purpose  Amoret 
had  never  before  seen.  Just  then  the  roof  of 
the  burning  warehouse  fell,  a  tower  of  sparks 
shot  skyward,  and  the  picture  was  reflected  in 
eyes  that  seemed  fairly  to  burn  into  her  soul. 
Amoret  wondered  if  she  were  alive,  or  if  this 
sudden  wild  drama  was  a  dream  —  here  within 
a  few  feet  of  her  childhood's  home,  where 
every  brick  and  stone  was  familiar,  fire  and 
water,  the  foes,  were  fighting  hand  in  hand  to 
whelm  the  familiar  old  shops,  the  while  Mor 
land,  perhaps  the  man  of  men  she  had  ever 
known,  was  asking  to  be  her  servant  and 
friend.  Her  brain  whirled,  and  for  absolute 
physical  lack  of  power  to  stand,  she  half  fell 


What  of  the  Night?  217 

against  him,  swiftly  thinking  that  he  had, 
after  all,  fitly  chosen  a  woeful  time  to  proffer 
help,  and  had  proved  himself  to  be  all  she 
had  hoped,  by  his  linking  together  in  utter 
unselfishness  herself,  the  dear  old  man,  and 
his  poor,  beloved,  wise-foolish  book.  An 
instant  vision  of  perfect,  large  life  for  the 
three,  in  which  each  should  strengthen  each  by 
giving  strongest  to  weakest,  flashed  through 
her  mind,  and  she  hurriedly  said,  "Oh,  per 
haps,  perhaps;  I  can't  think  now,  I  must  go 
to  find  him,"  and  ran  past  the  excited  groups 
up  street. 

The  veer  of  the  wind  had  saved  the  build 
ings  to  the  north,  but  the  bookstore  was  now 
in  danger.  The  volunteer  firemen  broke  in 
its  doors,  rushed  up  stairs,  and  threw  open 
the  wooden  shutters  to  toss  furniture  out,  if 
need  be,  or  let  water  in ;  thereby,  with  rural 
fatuity,  doing  the  worst  thing  possible  by 
letting  the  fierce  drafts  of  wind  suck  through. 
Morland  took  the  lead  in  helping,  and  as  there 
was  ample  time  for  salvage,  walked  quickly 
in  and  out  with  great  armfuls  of  the  books  his 
instinctive  glance  told  him  were  the  most 
valuable,  trying  the  while  to  restrain  willing 
but  clumsy  hands  from  carrying  out  wall-paper 
and  children's  slates,  and  the  ten-cent  side 
walk  book-box,  instead  of  heavy  cases  of  old 


2 1 8          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

calf -bound  tomes,  or  a  portfolio  of  irreplace 
able  prints. 

Meanwhile  the  old  man  was  back  again, 
breathless  and  feeble  from  his  needless  tasks 
of  self-sacrifice  amid  Hendrickson's  raisins  and 
sugars,  and  now  confronted  by  the  probable 
ruin  of  his  life-long  home.  Amoret  had 
found  him  without  trouble,  coming  out  of  the 
grocery,  and  had  got  from  him  a  solemn  prom 
ise  not  to  go  into  his  own  shop  after  one 
single  little  flame  of  fire  should  burst  from  it, 
at  the  same  time  telling  him  that  "  The  Phi 
losophy  of  Life  "  had  been  saved  first  of  all. 
What  Morland  was  doing  they  both  could  see, 
—  displaying,  as  he  was,  that  directive  power 
which  so  often  makes  a  white-handed  college 
man  a  better  helper  in  an  emergency  than 
fireman  or  fisherman  or  carpenter  knows  how 
to  be. 

But  Bellwood  had  not  yet  filled  up  the 
measure  of  an  excitement  unparalleled  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century.  Fast  and  far  and  furious 
flew  the  sparks,  or  bits  of  burning  shingles  as 
big  as  a  man's  hand,  endangering  more  than 
one  house  in  the  village;  so  that  some  of  the 
weary  crew  of  firemen  had  to  go  home  to  pour 
pails  of  water  on  their  own  house-roofs.  Just 
as  four  men  were  staggering  across  the  street 
with  the  biggest  case  of  books  in  Mr.  Welby's 


What  of  the  Night?  219 

shop,  one  of  them  looked  over  the  opposite 
roofs  and  shouted,  "See  that  light  way  over 
there  on  the  steeple ! " 

A  flying  torch  had  kindled  the  tower  far 
above  the  belfry  of  the  Orthodox  meeting 
house,  and  a  little  colony  of  flame,  in  the  stiff 
breeze,  was  running  around  the  telescopic 
Sir  Christopher  Wren  spire  that  had  so  long 
stood  out  against  the  west  sloping  hill.  After 
much  excited  talk,  the  new  danger  to  the 
whole  village  seemed  to  demand  that  the  old 
Lion  should  be  taken  to  the  vicinity  of  the 
church,  at  least  to  play  upon  the  roof ;  for  the 
fire  on  the  river  street  might  perhaps  be 
checked  at  the  wide  wharf -way  below  Welby's, 
even  if  the  bookstore,  as  now  seemed  likely, 
should  go. 

The  better  half  of  the  bookseller's  goods  had 
now  been  taken  out  and  carried  well  up  the 
cross-street,  where  Amoret,  with  a  queer  sense 
of  the  pitifulness  of  it  all,  saw  some  of  her 
childish  playthings  piled  pellmell  on  a  hair 
cloth  sofa  that  had  belonged  to  her  mother's 
scanty  wedding  outfit,  on  which  sofa  the  little 
girl  of  years  ago  used  to  play  ship.  Smoke 
was  now  leaking  from  half-a-dozen  windows 
in  front  of  the  bookshop;  the  apothecary's, 
next  door,  was  apparently  doomed;  and  in 
dreary  exhaustion  Mr.  Welby  was  seated  on  a 


22O         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

doorstep  on  the  other  side  of  the  street. 
Having  refused  to  take  a  sip  from  the  whiskey- 
flask  Morland  ran  over  to  proffer  him,  he 
was  helplessly  waiting  for  the  end.  Mean 
while,  when  half  the  crowd  had  run  to  the  new 
scene  of  danger,  a  little  girl,  who  had  been 
standing  too  near  the  original  conflagration, 
fell  to  the  earth  with  a  shriek;  a  falling  pane 
of  glass  had  cut  her  left  cheek  and  apparently 
blinded  an  eye,  which  was  covered  with  a  red 
stream.  Amoret  picked  her  up  and  ran  with 
her  in  search  of  warm  water  and  bandages, 
and  it  was  half  an  hour  before  she  thought 
again  of  bookstore,  grandfather,  or  Morland. 

Then  it  was,  in  the  little  time  of  her  absence, 
in  the  small  hours  of  that  lurid  spring  morn 
ing  by  the  river,  that  the  devil  came  forth 
from  the  flames  and  tempted  man  and  man 
fell;  but  the  flames  were  not  those  of  the 
burning  buildings,  but  those  of  his  fiery  heart. 


Time's   Fool.  221 


IX. 

TIME'S   FOOL. 

IT  all  happened  so  quickly,  the  cutting  of 
the  threads  that  bound  three  lives  together. 
Amoret  had  gone  on  her  errand  of  mercy,  and 
the  fire  had  settled  into  that  steady,  irrevo 
cable  spit  and  crackle  and  glow  and  tumble 
that  denote  a  conflagration  hopeless,  yet  not 
increasingly  dangerous.  The  wind  had  died 
away,  and  though  the  church,  as  well  as  the 
three  old  shops  on  the  river  street,  were  plainly 
doomed,  there  seemed  little  likelihood  of 
further  spread  of  the  flame-foe.  Then  it  was 
that  Morland  caught  sight  of  old  Welby  sitting 
wearily  on  the  doorstep  across  the  way,  watch 
ing  the  fate  of  the  bricks  and  boards  that  had 
been  his  home  and  workshop  for  a  lifetime. 

'rWell,  Mr.  Welby,"  said  Morland,  "it's 
pretty  bad ;  but  you  and  Amoret  are  safe,  any 
way,  and  here  's  your  book  of  books,  without 
a  singe  on  a  single  leaf. " 

Amoret  had  already  told  him  of  its  safety, 
so  now  he  took  the  volume  from  Morland 's 


222          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

hand  with  a  weary  grasp,  a  listless  eye,  and  a 
faint  "  thank  you. "  No  sooner  had  he  touched 
the  old  leather-bound  tome,  however,  than  he 
gave  a  start  from  his  lowly  seat.  Weight  and 
feeling  had  told  him  instantly  that  it  was  not 
the  volume  whose  every  atom  he  knew  so  well, 
by  long  and  loving  use,  that  he  could  have 
recognized  it  by  a  sixth  sense  of  apprehension 
had  he  gone  to  get  it  in  black  midnight  in 
some  impossible  place.  The  old  volume 
Morland  now  gave  him  was  of  the  same  size, 
it  had  chanced  to  be  in  the  same  desk,  and  so 
Amoret  had  caught  it  up  because  of  location 
rather  than  identity.  The  slowly-filled  jot 
tings  toward  vital  philosophy  had  been  made 
in  a  disused  blank  book  that  had  come  down 
from  the  thrifty  business  days  of  the  printing- 
house, —  a  journal,  or  invoice,  or  day-book, 
or  something  of  the  sort.  Knowing  her  grand 
father's  inveterate  and  mysterious  reverence 
for  his  self-imposed  task,  Amoret  had  never 
handled  the  manuscript  volume,  nor  would  she 
have  ventured,  in  a  less  critical  time,  to  try 
to  open  the  ark  and  rescue  the  covenant.  No 
wonder,  then,  that  she  made  so  disastrous  a 
mistake  in  her  swift  excitement;  the  old  man 
could  not  blame  her.  But  the  precious  pages 
—  what  was  to  become  of  them  now,  unwit 
tingly  left  In  the  furnace  of  fire  ?  Into  them, 


Times  Fool.  223 

for  many  a  year,  his  slow  right  hand  had  been 
trying  to  put  the  quintessence  of  his  own  soul 
and  wit.  Its  covers  included  his  sum-total,  for 
good  or  bad,  and  therefore  could  hardly  have 
failed  to  bind  up  some  little,  modest  egotism, 
some  personal  sense  of  value  born  at  least  of 
toil  and  ambition,  if  worthless  otherwise. 
But  more:  Mr.  Welby  had  all  along  meant 
this  scattered  record  to  be  his  best,  almost  his 
only,  legacy  to  Amoret  herself;  and  now  that 
she  was  half  in  the  toils  of  one  whom,  despite 
some  external  helpfulness,  he  instinctively 
felt  to  be  conscienceless  and  utterly  unworthy 
of  her,  the  "  Philosophy  of  Life  "  appeared  to 
be  of  more  value  than  all  else  that  could  burn 
in  the  store,  or  in  the  street,  or  in  the  church 
itself.  It  must  not  perish;  he  would  save  it; 
not  an  instant  was  to  be  lost. 

"Mr.  Morland,"  said  he,  with  the  solemn 
precision  that  sometimes  attends  times  of 
greatest  excitement,  "this  is  not  the  right 
book;  I  must  go  and  get  the  other  one,"  and 
he  started  totteringly  toward  the  burning 
building.  Flames  curled  from  the  roof  and 
blazed  from  the  river  end,  while  even  the  front 
door  and  windows  were  half  invisible  for 
smoke. 

"It  is  not  safe,  sir;  you  must  not  go,"  said 
Morland,  rising,  and  instinctively  clutching 


224         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

his  arm,  the  while  three  spirits  seemed  to 
scream  into  the  younger  man's  ear,  all  in  a 
single  second.  And  the  first  said,  "  Go  your 
self. "  And  the  second  said,  "Neither  may 
go."  And  the  third  said,  "  Let  him  go,  be  rid 
of  him,  and  Amoret  is  yours." 

They  started  across  the  street,  the  editor's 
hand  still  on  Welby's  arm.  Morland  gave  a 
hurried  look  up  and  down,  and  saw  that  they 
two  were  unobserved  at  the  moment,  by  the 
firemen  or  the  jaded  or  idle  men  and  boys 
scattered  along  the  thoroughfare ;  for  the  eyes 
of  all  were  fixed  on  flames  high  in  air,  rather 
than  on  doorways  or  rubbishy  sidewalks  in 
front  of  the  fire-doomed  shops.  Then  there 
rushed  on  his  mind  nothing  less  than  the  whole 
thought  of  the  relation  of  the  present  moment 
to  the  future  of  the  three  —  to  their  future  on 
earth,  that  is  to  say,  for  there  is  no  other 
future.  Now  or  never  was  his  time  to  apply 
common  sense  to  the  situation.  What  was  the 
good  of  mentality  if  it  could  not  make  years 
swing  on  the  pivot  of  a  second?  Amoret 
loved  him;  old  Welby  had  some  senile,  jeal 
ous,  fussy  dislike  of  him  that  was  sure  to  be 
an  annoyance  so  long  as  the  septuagenarian 
crawled  or  mumbled  into  dotage,  and  possibly 
might  spoil  everything,  what  with  Amoret's 
sentimental,  feminine  ideas  of  duty.  Duty? 


Time's  Fool.  225 

What  is  duty  ?  Ask  nature.  It  is  the  indi 
vidual's  care  of  self  as  he  seeks  his  best  good. 
Deny  it  if  you  dare,  and  accept  the  alterna 
tive  of  providing  for  age,  imbecility,  pauper 
ism,  superfluity,  at  the  expense  of  youth,  vigor, 
productiveness,  usefulness.  Why,  even  the 
North  American  Indians,  or  the  Spartans, 
knew  better  than  that.  Old  Welby  had  done 
his  work ;  what  right  had  he  to  interfere  to  the 
bedevilment  of  a  chance  for  a  most  interest 
ing  experiment,  should  Morland  conclude  to 
marry  Amoret?  His  old  rubbishy  proverbs 
would  be  no  loss  any  way,  but  let  him  save 
them  if  he  could;  nobody  asked  him  to  write 
them  or  to  rescue  them ;  on  his  own  head  be 
the  risk.  In  fact,  would  it  not  be  a  sort  of 
poetic  euthanasia  for  his  atoms  to  dissipate  in 
flame  along  with  those  of  his  house,  and  notes, 
and  shop?  And  wouldn't  it  be  better,  if  you 
must  talk  about  ethics,  for  Amoret  to  lose  her 
grandfather  for  five  years,  maybe,  than  to  lose 
the  chance  of  forty  years  with  himself?  One 
need  be  no  more  afraid  of  death  than  of  life 
— leSs,  for  that  matter.  Even  the  Christians 
call  death  for  others  the  supreme  good;  very 
well,  let  the  old  fellow  attain  it  by  dying  for 
Amoret  and  him ;  who  would  deny  him  such  a 
privilege?  You  must  decide  some  things 
quickly  in  this  world,  if  all  such  thoughts  as 
15 


226         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

these  come  crowding  on  your  mind  while  you 
pass  through  a  flash  of  time  and  a  rod  of  space ; 
so  Morland  was  sure  that  he  rose  superior  to 
the  accidents  of  circumstance  and  prejudice 
when  to  the  half-crazed  old  man's  second  ap 
peal  for  release  he  said,  "All  right,  then,  be 
careful,"  let  go  his  arm,  and  saw  him  rush 
through  the  smoky  door.  It  was  mere  chance 
that  Morland  simultaneously  looked  up  and 
down  the  street  to  reassure  himself  that  the 
disappearance  had  been  unperceived  by  any 
body  else;  and  that  he  thought  he  would  walk 
briskly  up  to  the  burning  church  on  the  hill, 
now  really  a  pretty  spectacle  in  its  heaven 
ward  pyre  of  sheeted  flame.  "You  wouldn't 
believe,"  said  he  to  himself,  "that  a  man  could 
disappear  in  that  way  with  so  much  light  in 
so  many  people's  eyes;  perhaps  it  was  that 
last  puff  of  downward  smoke  that  covered  him. 
But  we  scientists  should  never  forget  that  it 
is  the  improbable  that  must  often  be  ac 
counted  for." 

Amoret,  meanwhile,  had  cared  for  her  little 
sufferer  as  quickly  as  was  possible  for  sympa 
thetic  fingers,  and  hurried  back  to  find  her 
grandfather.  That  she  did  not  see  him  at 
once  was  no  marvel,  but  when  she  had  run  up 
and  down  the  street  for  some  minutes,  inquir 
ing  with  ever-gaining  anxiety  concerning  his 


Times  Fool.  227 

whereabouts,  and  had  got  no  information  of 
any  satisafctory  kind,  she  began  to  be  alarmed. 
Yes,  he  had  been  seen  quite  lately;  he  had 
been  sitting  on  a  doorstep  on  the  west  side  of 
the  street ;  and  that  was  all.  Where  had  he 
gone?  there  was  no  new  danger  to  call  him 
away;  the  property  saved  from  the  bookstore 
was  well  guarded,  nor  had  Mr.  Welby  visited 
the  pile  for  an  hour,  she  was  told.  Could  he 
have  gone,  from  mere  curiosity,  to  the  burning 
church?  It  was  unlikely,  in  his  weary  state; 
but  where  else  could  he  be?  Where  too, 
was  Morland?  Amoret  had  not  met  him  in 
her  new  huntings,  and  could  only  learn  from 
a  bystander,  who  chanced  to  know  him  by 
sight,  that  he  had  been  on  the  street  in  the 
vague  period  "within  an  hour  or  two."  No 
body  had  seen  the  two  men  together,  but  by 
the  perversity  of  horror  the  thought  flashed 
into  Amoret 's  tired  brain  that  they  might  have 
gone  into  the  burning  building  for  some  last 
rescue.  Morland,  said  she  to  herself,  would 
be  tlje  very  man  to  try  to  help  poor  grandfather 
in  that  way,  at  the  risk  of  his  own  life.  Im 
possible  !  somebody  would  have  seen  them,  even 
if  nobody  had  prevented  such  foolhardiness. 

In  despair,  Amoret  turned  up  the  hill  toward 
the  burning  church,  now  a  glorious  spectacle. 
The  first  dispersed  light  of  dawn  over  the  pine- 


228  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

clad  eastern  hills  was  beginning  faintly  to 
rival  the  glow  of  the  flame,  when,  far  up  in  the 
fire-girt  tower,  the  bell  tolled  its  own  knell  by 
striking  four  an  instant  before  steeple,  bell, 
clock  and  all  shivered,  leaned,  and  fell  back 
ward  through  the  red-skeleton  roof.  A  shower 
of  sparks,  a  pillar  of  fire  by  night,  rose  majes 
tically  skyward,  and  by  their  light  Amoret  saw 
the  pale  face  of  Morland  standing  at  a  safe 
distance,  and  looking  upward  with  that  pure, 
ethereal  gaze  she  had  always  connected  with 
his  best  moods. 

She  rushed  up  and  took  his  hand  with  a 
clutch  in  which  new  love  and  newer  despair 
seemed  to  combine;  he  was  all  she  had  for 
the  moment.  "Where  is  grandfather?"  she 
gasped,  with  strained  voice  and  eager  eyes, 
in  a  child's  assurance  that  he  must  know  all, 
or  that  his  lack  of  knowledge  would  be  some 
thing  to  cling  to.  Morland  was  more  startled 
by  her  apparition  than  so  calm  a  being  had 
ever  before  been  in  all  his  self-centred  days; 
he  had  not  expected  to  see  Amoret  just  then, 
nor  had  he  ever  beheld  on  her  face  such  dis 
traught  anxiety;  youth  and  beauty  had,  for 
the  time  being,  become  agonized  age.  How 
much  did  she  know?  he  wondered.  A  slight 
flush,  as  of  mirrored  coals,  rose  to  his  cheeks, 
and  his  throat  was  half  locked  as  he  said,  in 


Times  Fool.  229 

reply,  "Where  is  Mr.  Welby,  dear?  How 
should  I  know?  I  've  been  up  here  for  an 
hour;  isn't  he  on  the  street?  I  spoke  to  him 
a  while  ago  when  he  was  down  there." 

Morland  wanted  to  make  the  time  of  his 
absence  as  long  as  possible,  but  Amoret  hit 
at  once,  with  woman's  clear,  incisive  jus 
tice,  on  the  very  word  he  thought  the  safest. 
"An  hour,  Mr.  Morland?  Oh!  how  could 
you  leave  him  ?  Did  n't  you  know  I  was  away  ? 
and  I  'm  sure  it  was  n't  thirty  minutes  ! "  "I 
missed  him  when  you  were  gone,"  said  Mor 
land,  now  in  full  possession  of  his  powers, 
"and  came  up  here  to  see  if  he  was  n't  at  the 
second  fire." 

"  And  you  've  been  here  an  hour  and  have  n't 
seen  him !  Oh,  Mr.  Morland,  we  must  go 
back  right  away  and  find  him,  if  we  ask  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  on  the  street  where 
he  is !  Come ! "  said  she,  simply,  with  iron 
will,  as  she  grasped  his  hand  again  in  cold 
immitigability. 

There  was  nothing  for  the  modern  Cain  to 
do  save  to  become  his  brother's  keeper.  Down 
the  street  they  went;  Amoret  made  no  con 
cealment  of  her  agony  of  suspense,  and  her 
queries  were  fast  and  almost  fierce,  but  nobody 
could  reassure  her  save  by  general  remarks 
that  he  "must  be  all  right." 


230         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

"If  'twere  n't  that  he  had  his  book,"  said 
she,  in  a  new  thought,  "  I  'd  be  sure  he  had 
gone  back  for  it;  but  you  gave  it  him,  didn't 
you  ? "  she  exclaimed,  with  the  precision  that 
clung  to  every  known  fact  in  the  awful  puzzle. 

"Yes,"  said  Morland  simply;  "the  last 
time  T  saw  him." 

"  But  that  was  after  you  left  me,  and  I  had 
given  it  to  you,"  said  she.  "That  couldn't 
have  been  an  hour  ago,"  she  added,  unsuspi 
ciously;  "you  could  n't  have  been  up  there  as 
long  as  you  thought." 

Morland  grew  uneasy,  but  felt  that  in  the 
affair,  however  it  ended,  nothing  could  ever 
be  definitely  known.  It  must  have  ended  by 
this  time,  for  the  shop  was  now  nearly  con 
sumed.  Welby  had  not  reappeared,  nor  could 
he  be  thought  to  have  survived,  soliloquized 
the  one  man  who  knew  of  his  fate.  He  had 
often  reflected  that  folks  who  told  the  whole 
truth  told  something  more  than  the  truth,  that 
is  to  say,  progressive  scientific  truth.  To 
wait,  to  be  calm,  and  to  let  Amoret's  visible 
need  of  him  be  the  magnet  to  draw  her  to  him 
in  the  days  to  come,  was  a  policy  so  obvious 
that  there  was  not  the  slightest  use  of  hurry. 
A  few  quiet  words  of  reassurance  and  consola 
tion  were  all  that  would  ever  be  necessary, 
nor  were  they  needed  yet;  it  was  enough  to 


Times  Fool.  231 

urge  Amoret  not  to  worry,  for  the  old  man 
must  be  somewhere  all  right ;  nobody  would 
have  dreamed  of  going  into  the  building  for 
an  hour  or  more  past. 

Everybody  else  thought  and  said  the  same 
thing,  except  lame,  witless  Alice,  who  came 
stumbling  up  to  the  two,  all  breathless  and 
muddy.  Amoret  had  befriended  the  child  of 
yore,  and  Alice  was  always  hanging  about 
her,  when  allowed,  in  humble,  dog-like  adora 
tion.  Excitement  now,  however,  unlimbered 
her  dull  tongue  to  say,  "  Oh,  Miss  Amoret, 
oh,  mister !  did  he  come  out  the  front  way  or 
the  back  way  ? " 

"What  do  you  mean,  child?"  said  Amoret, 
wondering  if  her  own  brain  would  cease  to  do 
its  work,  and  her  legs  fail  to  support  her 
body. 

"Oh!  the  back  way's  all  water  and  the 
front  way  's  all  fire !  and  I  see  yer  mister  and 
yer  grandfather  a  goin'  in;  but  the  new  mister 
jest  stopped,  't  was  so  smoky,  and  Mister 
Wejby,  I  guess  he  went  ahead ;  and  I  watched 
and  watched,  and  he  did  n't  come  out,  and  I 
told  everybody,  and  they  said  I  was  crazy 
Alice!  but  I  ain't  crazy,  and  I  see  Mister 
Welby,  and  he  didn't  have  his  hat  on,  and 
then  this  mister  went  up  the  hill,  and  I 
thought  he  must  have  knowed  yer  grand- 


232          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

father 'd  come  out  somehow,  an'  I  donno  how, 
for  I  've  watched  'im  and  he  's  been  all  alone 
till  yer  come,  and  I  knowed  he  would  n't  go 
off  till  he  come  out  too ;  but  he  ain't  with  you, 
and  I  don'  know,  I  don'  know  nothin'  more," 
and  Alice  stopped  for  mere  lack  of  breath. 

"  Went  in!"  said  Amoret,  in  terror.  Her 
heart  fairly  stopped  beating  while  she  clutched 
the  child  with  icy  hand;  "went  in  alone,  and 
Mr.  Morland  was  with  him  and  saw  him  ? " 

Alice  nodded  her  head  in  the  vociferous- 
ness  of  affirmative.  To  believe  her  was  im 
possible,  to  doubt  all  truth  in  her  statement 
was  to  throw  away  the  one  hideous  gleam  of 
light  on  the  mystery. 

"Amoret,"  said  Morland,  who  felt  that  he 
must  play  trumps  against  luck,  "  the  child  is 
crazy,  and  your  own  brain  is  fairly  reeling; 
let  us  go  and  find  some  place  for  you  to  rest." 

"Alice,"  said  Amoret,  unheeding  him, 
"  Alice,  dear,  you  must  have  dreamed  it ;  this 
has  been  an  awful  night  for  us  all,  enough  to 
turn  a  stronger  head  than  yours." 

"Oh,  no,  I  did  n't,  Miss  Amoret,"  said  she, 
gaining  breath.  "This  mister  he  guv  Mister 
Welby  a  book,  and  Mr.  Welby  guv  a  groan 
and  throwed  the  book  away,  and  I  picked  it 
up,  and  here  it  is;  and  then  Mister  Welby 
said,  oh  dear,  he  must  go  and  get  the  tother 


Times  Fool.  233 

one,  and  then  he  went,  and  I  don't  guess  he 
got  it  after  all;"  and  Alice's  left  hand  dived 
under  her  dirty  skirt  and  handed  Amoret  a 
book,  half -bound  in  old  Russia  leather,  and 
labeled  "Invoice." 

Amoret  mechanically  took  it,  opened  its 
leaves,  half-written  over  with  old  business 
accounts  of  the  publishing  firm,  and  recog 
nized  it  at  once  by  a  crack  in  the  top  of  the 
back  of  the  binding,  in  which  she  had  caught 
her  finger  when,  a  few  hours  ago,  she  had  got 
this  very  volume  from  the  upstairs  desk.  It 
was  the  book  that  she  had  transferred  to  Mor- 
land  for  safe  keeping,  and  it  was  not  "The 
Philosophy  of  Life."  And  there  burned  into 
Amoret's  mind,  in  intense  and  immitigable 
and  irrefutable  clearness,  a  tenfold  horror,  in 
which  culminated  all  the  woes  of  that  night 
of  nights.  She  had  got  the  wrong  book ;  Mor- 
land  had  given  it  to  her  grandfather,  who  had 
rushed  to  his  death  in  the  furnace  of  his  own 
home  and  his  own  hopes ;  and  Morland  — 
Morland  —  Henry  Morland  —  had  let  him,  and 
then  had  gone  up  the  hill  to  watch  a  steeple 
tumble  down.  And  this  was  the  culmination 
of  the  wealth  of  life;  this  her  hero;  this  the 
revelation  of  a  supreme  moment. 

Amoret  turned  toward  him  with  the  stony 
look  of  a  sphinx  set  on  a  judgment  throne. 


234         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

What  to  do  or  say  he  knew  not  for  the 
moment;  even  the  heirs  of  all  the  ages  are 
not  infallible  on  the  instant;  and  against  that 
look  he  could  but  stutter  a  few  words  that 
not  one  of  the  three  —  Amoret,  crazy  Alice,  or 
himself — really  heard.  Between  them  had 
come  a  century  of  years  and  a  universe  of 
morals ;  that  was  all. 

The  man  was  the  first  to  speak  again. 
"Amoret,"  said  he,  "if  you  have  loved  me 
ever  so  little,  hear  me  now  or  hear  me  by  and 
by,  when  you  are  calmer.  You  and  I  ought 
to  be  able  to  live  by  the  higher  truth  and  the 
greater  good;  you  will  see  that  it  was  best  for 
us  both;  "  but  he  visibly  trembled. 

All  Amoret  ever  said  to  him  again  was 
spoken  that  moment,  after  a  pause  that  was 
bitter  to  both,  and  seemed  never  to  end. 
"Mr.  Morland,"  said  she,  in  a  voice  that 
sounded  as  strangely  to  her  own  ears  as  to 
his,  "you  are  more  dead  than  my  poor  grand 
father  you  let  go  to  his  death,  for  you  never 
lived ;  I  have  dreamed  you ; "  and  she  turned 
her  face  from  his  forever. 

Dawn  grew  apace,  and  the  wild  and  woful 
night  was  over.  For  long  did  the  little  town 
tell  and  re-tell  the  vicissitudes  of  those  lurid 
and  awful  hours;  but  upon  none  of  them  did 
the  babblers  and  wiseacres  more  fondly  dwell 


Times  Fool.  235 

than  upon  the  strange  escape  of  old  Mr. 
Welby.  With  many  a  variation  and  expan 
sion,  many  a  query  and  asseveration  and 
denial,  did  town-talk  say  how  he  had  rushed 
through  stifling  smoke  to  the  back  room  of  the 
second  story  of  his  bookstore,  rescued  from  a 
desk  an  old  book  on  which,  said  one,  he  "  sot 
everythin'  —  mebbe  't  was  old  accounts  he 
thought  he  might  collect ;  "  found  his  way  of 
exit  to  the  street  cut  off;  become  confused  by 
the  heat  and  well-nigh  suffocated  by  the 
smoke;  struggled  down  stairs  by  a  back  way, 
he  hardly  knew  how,  and  by  the  good  luck  of 
very  fatuity,  when  his  wits  were  all  gone, 
thrust  a  heavy  wooden  shutter  through  a  win 
dow  and  trusted  himself  thereto  as  upon  a 
raft  to  sail  down  the  ice-floed  flood  of  the 
freshet.  Starting  on  his  voyage  so  far  from 
the  centre  of  the  current,  he  chanced  soon  to 
drift  ashore,  and  was  found,  half  fainting  and 
half  frozen,  beside  a  coal  shed,  no  more  than 
two  hundred  feet  below,  with  the  drenched 
book  beneath  his  rusty  coat.  The  news  of  his 
rescue  flew  apace;  a  crowd  gathered,  for  the 
fires  were  now  nearly  burned  out,  and  a  dozen 
tender  hands  bore  him  to  Squire  Bennett's, 
where  he  lay  in  mere  feebleness  for  a  week, 
but  began,  after  a  fortnight,  under  Doctor 
Urquhart's  cheery  care,  to  get  over  the  shock. 


236         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

The  doctor  gave  him  so  little  medicine  that 
Mr.  Welby  could  hardly  account  for  the  fact 
that  each  day  brought  new  strength,  unless  it 
was  because,  having  been  assured  that  he  had 
no  physiological  right  to  die,  he  felt  that  a 
relapse  would  be  illogical.  When  he  began 
to  talk  much,  a  favorite  theme  was  Doctor 
Urquhart's  intuitive  perception  and  common 
sense;  but  Amoret  was  inclined  to  apply  the 
related  adjective  commonplace  to  man  and 
method.  The  doctor,  she  admitted,  had  a 
pleasant  face  and  knew  when  to  hold  his 
tongue;  for  the  rest,  he  seemed  to  let  things 
drift,  while  nature  did  the  curing. 

Bellwood,  as  became  a  provincial  town,  did 
not  quickly  recover  from  its  draught  of  excite 
ment  ;  but  of  all  its  people  Amoret,  in  those 
sequent  days,  was  the  serenely  quiet  one; 
anybody  might  have  thought  her  a  marble 
statue  had  not  her  few  words  been  so  kindly 
and  her  hand-touch  so  soft.  That  her  face 
was  pale  was  no  wonder;  had  not  her  grand 
father  lost  his  livelihood  and  narrowly  escaped 
with  his  life  ?  It  was  lucky,  folks  said,  that 
Amoret  had  a  good  place,  and  that  her  school 
mistress  was  willing  to  let  her  off  for  a  few 
weeks;  while  they  noted,  with  considerable 
unanimity,  that  she  was  "a  good  deal  of  a 
girl." 


Times  Fool.  237 

Down  went  the  river  water ;  the  day  after 
the  fire  the  charred,  fallen  timbers  were  picked 
up  from  the  streets  in  front  of  the  long-to-be- 
vacant  black  holes  where  the  stores  and  the 
church  had  been;  and  then  breakfasts  were 
eaten  and  tenpenny  nails  sold  as  before.  One 
more  sensation,  however,  was  to  follow  the 
parlous  time:  Death  was  to  have  its  victim, 
if  balked  of  its  chance  of  the  bookseller. 

"Kind  of  funny,  wasn't  it?"  said  sapient 
Gossip;  "friend  of  Amoret's,  just  stopping 
over  for  a  train  or  two.  I  would  n't  wonder  a 
bit  if  he  died  of  heart-disease;  he  must  have 
been  excited,  and  those  city  fellows  aren't 
used  to  hard  work ;  besides,  those  that  saw 
him  said  he  did  n't  look  over  strong.  Wish  't 
had  been  Jones  that  saw  him  first,  instead  of 
Urquhart;  he'd  have  let  folks  know  what  he 
thought  about  it.  I  hate  a  doctor  that  never 
says  nothing;  seem 's  though  the  public  had 
some  rights.  Some  folks  said  he  was  hang 
ing  around  Amoret.  Well,  there  's  all  sorts 
of  talk,  and  I  suppose  he  was  pretty  well 
known  down  to  Harborside;  but  what  I  guess 
is  that  he  was  a  Catholic  priest  in  disguise. 
Amoret  would  n't  have  had  him,  anyway,  and 
he  couldn't  have  married  her  if  she  would; 
and  if  he  was  a  priest,  it 's  just  as  well  he  's 
out  of  the  way.  They  said  his  poor  old  mother 


238          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

was  kind  of  glad  he  was  found  where  he  was, 
for  she  was  sure  he  'd  been  a-praying;  but  his 
father  didn't  like  it  quite  so  well.  Did 
Amoret  see  his  folks  when  they  came  to  take 
the  body  away?  Well,  there,  I  never  thought 
to  ask." 

If  Fact  had  been  minded  —  as,  according 
to  custom,  it  was  not  —  to  tell  the  community 
the  truth,  it  would  have  said  this :  — 

When  Amoret  gave  Morland  a  last  leaden 
look  and  turned  northward  up  the  blighted 
street,  he  was  left  in  a  mental  state  of  which 
deep  and  all-pervading  annoyance  was  the 
chief  element.  Accustomed  all  his  life  to 
be  and  say  and  do  what  he  chose,  in  a  reticent 
and  refined  loyalty  to  the  thought  of  personal 
advantage,  things  seemed  sadly  askew  when 
they  failed  to  happen  as  he  wished.  Ever 
since  Amoret  had  made  that  miserable  visit 
to  the  mountains  he  had  felt  his  power  over 
her  wane,  what  with  time,  luck,  grandfather, 
and  all.  The  cards  were  no  longer  in  his 
own  hand,  and  so,  without  conscious  misplay 
in  his  intellectual  game,  things  had  somewhat 
passed  beyond  his  control.  Having  had,  at 
least,  the  good  sense  to  wait,  to  make  no 
scene,  and  to  betray  no  undue  interest,  every 
thing  had  at  length  come  right  again  for  a 
moment,  thanks  to  this  tempest  in  a  local 


Time's  Fool. 

teapot,  but  only  to  go  disgustingly  wrong  at 
last.  If  that  idiotic  brat  had  never  cursed 
the  world,  to  come  tattling  the  devil's  mis 
chief!  And  then  old  Welby's  book  —  and 
Morland  laughed  hollowly  to  himself  as  he 
thought  of  its  perversely  important  part  in 
the  recent  fiasco  play.  Well,  book  and  Welby 
were  gone,  he  himself  was  gone,  everything 
was  gone;  for  when  pride  departs  whoever 
will  may  have  the  rest. 

Just  what  was  next  to  do  he  knew  not! 
Get  out  of  Bellwood  in  decent  obscurity  and 
go  back  to  his  tiresome  paper  and  his  rubbishy 
essays?  What  was  the  good  of  proving  or 
disproving  anything,  or  pottering  away  over 
problems  and  essays  thereon?  The  only 
decent  thing  for  a  man  to  do  before  he  dies 
is  to  work;  but  what  is  the  use  of  work?  For 
yourself  ?  you  die  and  lose  it  all.  For  others  ? 
the  higher  you  raise  them  the  greater  their 
ultimate  fall  into  nescience  and  obscurity. 
The  earthworm  suffered  less  than  man,  and 
the  molten  rock  less  than  the  earthworm. 

Then  there  flashed  into  his  mind  Swin 
burne's  line:  " Now  what  a  thing  it  is  to  be 
an  ass ! "  By  this  time  he  was  walking  up 
deserted  Union  street  toward  the  top  of  the 
hill.  It  was  getting  light,  but  nobody  saw 
him,  and  nobody  would  have  known  him  if 


240         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

seen;  that  at  least  was  good  luck.  To  be 
made  ridiculous  by  the  top-lofty  righteousness 
of  a  schoolteacher  and  the  timely  tattling  of 
a  non-compos!  high  fate  for  a  critic  of  civili 
zation  !  Amoret  would  never  tell ;  Morland 
almost  wished  she  would,  for  then  he  would 
have  a  little  comfort  in  his  self-despite.  It 
would  be  a  friendly  service  if  there  could  be 
pinned  on  his  back  one  of  the  labels  affable 
schoolboys  affix  to  each  other:  "Somebody 
please  kick  me." 

Well,  then,  should  he  show  his  magnitude 
and  manliness  by  dismissing  this  whole  epi 
sode  as  one  more  proof  of  the  general  reign  of 
folly  and  perversity  in  the  world?  Why 
trouble  any  more  with  such  a  world,  anyhow  ? 
Suppose  he  were  to  quit  it  —  now  would  be 
as  good  a  time  as  any,  and  he  would  save  ten 
days  or  ten  years  or  fifty  years  of  drudgery. 
Suicide  for  disappointed  love,  the  world 
might  say?  Not  a  bit  of  it;  no  one  would 
guess  it,  not  even  Amoret.  He  had  often 
thought  of  quitting  things  if  they  became 
really  annoying,  and  certainly  he  was  at  this 
minute  a  trial  to  himself.  He  never  asked 
to  be  born,  and  he  had  a  perfect  right  to  die. 
What  was  it  that  fine  old  pessimist  said: 
"There  is  no  work,  nor  device,  nor  knowl 
edge,  nor  wisdom  in  the  grave  whither  thou 


Times  Fool.  241 

goest. "  Exactly;  he  could  put  himself  on  a 
dead  level  with  Plato  and  Theodora  in  ten 
minutes.  The  game  is  not  worth  the  candle; 
blow  out  the  light  and  there  you  are.  It 
would  really  be  a  good  joke  to  kill  yourself 
—  not  because  you  cared  so  much  for  Amoret, 
but  because  you  cared  so  little;  and  besides, 
it  would  serve  her  right.  He  knew  her  well 
enough  to  know  that  the  thought  of  such  an 
exit  on  his  part  would  be  to  her  a  lifelong 
misery;  a  just  punishment  for  her  procrastina 
tion  to  begin  with,  and  her  dulness  in  failing 
to  see  the  large  advantageousness  of  taking 
his  say-so  to  end  with.  She,  too,  would 
sooner  or  later  come  to  this  same  boon  of 
oblivion;  but  meanwhile  let  her  suffer;  such 
simpletons  ought  to  make  their  own  bed  and 
lie  in  it. 

What  was  he  doing?  making  faces  at  Fate 
when  he  dared  not  defy  her?  Did  he  really 
dare  to  carry  out  this  whim  of  the  moment? 
It  was  no  whim;  it  had  been  a  thought  of 
years.  A  prudent  man  foreseeth  the  evil  and 
hideth  himself,  but  the  simple  pass  on,  and 
are  punished  —  the  Hebrews  were  politic  as 
well  as  pessimistic.  At  any  rate,  now  was  a 
good  time  to  try  a  little  experiment.  Would 
twice  his  occasional  luxurious  dose  of  Indian 
hemp  be  an  overplus  ?  If  no,  luck  would  tell 
16 


242          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

him  to  live  a  while  longer;  if  yes,  then  the 
devil  take  the  hindmost :  to  wit,  Mademoi 
selle  Amoret  Wenton,  of  Bellwood,  present. 

Out  came  a  little  bottle  from  a  morocco  case 
well-worn  by  long  carrying;  there  was  a  trou 
blesome  swallowing,  and  Henry  Morland  stood 
on  the  borderland  between  two  worlds  —  no, 
not  that,  on  the  edge  of  the  only  world.  Was 
he  to  tumble  off?  He  glanced  down  the  hill 
at  the  two  columns  of  gray  smoke,  pale  and 
thin  in  the  early  sunlight,  and  was  rather  sur 
prised  at  the  trifling  change  wrought  in  him, 
at  the  start,  by  a  possibly  irrevocable  step.  If 
he  ever  came  out  of  this  he  would  give  science 
the  benefit  of  his  experiences.  He  might 
imagine  a  numbness  and  prickling  in  his  left 
foot,  but  that  was  the  bootmaker's  fault;  the 
boot  had  seemed  tight  before,  and  had  got  wet 
at  the  fire. 

Why  take  the  trouble  to  climb  that  hill, 
when  you  can  just  as  well  walk  down  as  up  ? 
So  he  crossed  to  Academy  street  and  saun 
tered  down.  A  rooster  on  a  fence  saw  him, 
abbreviated  his  crow  and  hurriedly  and  awk 
wardly  hopped  down  and  ran  across  the  street 
in  front  of  him.  They  used  to  say  that 
animals  perceived  impending  death  in  man; 
a  pig  sees  the  wind,  and  it  is  blood-red ;  was 
the  chanticleer  frightened?  He  might  try 


Times  Fool.  243 

to  pet  the  first  dog  he  saw.  There  goes  one : 
"  Come  here,  sir !  "  The  puppy  ran  readily 
up,  with  a  quickly  wagging  tail,  a  deprecatory 
air,  and  an  increasingly  grovelling  gait,  and 
finally  threw  himself  on  his  back  before  the 
poison-taker,  his  tail  still  trying  to  wag. 
"Not  much  terror  there, "  said  Morland;  "per 
haps  my  time  hasn't  come  yet.  But,  my  boy, 
you  and  I  will  turn  up  our  toes  for  good  and 
all  before  a  great  while,  whatever  happens ; " 
and  he  stooped  to  pat  the  puppy.  As  he  did 
so  there  came  a  slight  ringing  in  his  ears, 
the  sky  flushed  with  pink,  and  he  staggered  a 
little.  "  Better  not  try  that  again  ;  what  was 
it  the  ethical  spouter  used  to  say  about  man's 
privilege  to  stand  erect?  I  doubt  if  I  stand 
erect  much  longer,  but  I  may  as  well  while  I 
can.  I  've  had  at  least  one  poor  goodness  in 
my  life ;  never  asked  anybody  to  boost  me  up. 

"  Rather  pretty  view  that ;  feel  as  though 
I'd  like  to  have  something  to  take  hold  of; 
that 's  why  lamp-posts  are  useful;  wish  I  had 
a  cane.  Why  not  sit  down  ?  If  I  do  I  may 
have  to  stay;  better  keep  going.  What  a 
noise  the  river  makes!  you  could  hear  it 
twenty  miles  off.  My  left  leg  don't  seem  to 
care  to  keep  step  with  the  right. 

"  Suppose  I  do  die,  why  make  a  spectacle 
of  myself  by  being  found  out  here?  First, 


244         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

they  'd  think  me  drunk,  and  then  they  'd 
wonder  who  'd  killed  me.  Why  not  go  into 
the  next  yard,  or  this  one,  and  sit  down  under 
a  tree?  What's  this?  little  church?  door 
open  as  early  as  this?  Catholic;  haven't 
been  in  a  church  for  twenty  years ;  might  go 
and  rest  a  bit;  very  likely  this  mean  feeling 
will  pass  away;  I  believe  I  feel  a  little  better 
already;  of  course  one  couldn't  take  such  a 
dereliction  without  some  shiver  of  result. 

"  Hard  work  up  that  procession ;  dark  was 
the  willow  wan ;  oh,  what  a  roar  on  the  denk 
of  the  rock!  when  will  the  benefit  askew?  if  I 
only  had  a  helper  to  hold  that  heart-will." 
In  truth  the  blood  beat,  beat  into  his  brain 
like  the  thud  of  a  hydraulic  ram,  but  he  looked 
at  his  hand,  and  was  surprised  to  see  that  he 
could  not  lift  it.  Then  it  occurred  to  him  to 
try  to  wink,  and  just  as  the  eyelids  moved  he 
stumbled  and  fell  sidewise  through  the  red 
curtain  that  screened  a  confessional  box  near 
the  door  of  the  little  church,  —  all  untenanted 
as  yet,  but  open  for  early  mass  an  hour  to 
come,  for  the  sexton  had  saved  himself  another 
journey  by  turning  the  key  on  his  way  home 
from  the  fire. 

As  he  fell,  his  head  rolled  to  one  side,  and 
he  caught  the  faint  flickering  of  a  tiny  red 
light  in  the  glass  bowl  of  a  lamp  hanging 


Times  Fool.  245 

above  the  tawdry  little  altar  of  white  paint 
and  pseudo  gold.  It  was  the  eye  of  God! 
would  it  jump  out  of  its  socket  and  chase  him  ? 
If  so,  perhaps  that  man  would  stop  it;  but 
no,  he  could  n't,  for  he  was  nailed  hand  and 
foot  to  a  post.  He  himself  must  run  away. 
He  was  sure  he  could  think  clearer  than  ever, 
if  only  words  would  come;  but  somehow  his 
brain  and  his  body  alike  refused  to  obey  the 
real  him.  Green  roaring,  that  was  all;  but 
then  came  a  whirl  of  far  music  and  plenty  of 
pictures,  one  after  another,  or  another  in  one; 
and  he  could  walk  into  each  picture  without 
getting  up  from  the  floor,  — that  was  a  com 
fort.  He  stood  in  the  Lenox  churchyard  on 
the  hill,  with  Death's  serene  outlook  across 
the  valleys;  he  looked  seaward  from  Green 
Mountain  over  the  isles,  and  up  through  hill- 
girt  Lake  George;  he  sniffed  the  odors  of  a 
hayfield,  and  there  came  back  to  him  his  first 
reading  of  The  Earthly  Paradise  in  the  sunny 
July  afternoons  of  a  college  vacation ;  he 
peeced  into  the  pool  near  the  Flume  House, 
and  saw  the  water  tumbling  down  to  Niagara 
Falls,  more  majestic  than  the  falls  them 
selves  ;  he  walked  on  the  top  of  the  Natural 
Bridge  at  twilight  and  tried  to  hear  the  brook 
that  rushed  through  the  gorge  below;  a  dirty 
squirrel  in  Capitol  park  at  Richmond  hopped 


246          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

into  his  hand  for  a  nut;  a  thunderstorm 
crashed  anew  over  Lake  Champlain,  while  a 
night-hawk  screamed;  there  rose  before  his 
gaze  the  White  Hills  in  winter,  sixty  miles 
away;  waked  by  the  trombones,  he  walked 
with  the  Moravians  up  to  the  hillside  graves 
in  the  Pennsylvania  Nazareth  for  the  Easter- 
morning  service ;  in  the  plain  square  church 
of  the  Irvingites  in  West-sixteenth  street  he 
heard  one  speak  with  tongues,  and  he  under 
stood  it  all,  and  knew  that  it  meant  that  the 
secret  of  life  was  the  inwhirl,  provided  only 
that  he  clutch  the  ice-clad  chains  of  the  Bat 
tery  and  row  across  Sachacha  pond  in  view 
less  fog.  Last  of  all  — 

When  Father  Conaty  came  to  the  church  for 
early  mass  he  found  Morland's  body  on  the 
floor,  hat  on  head,  and  eyes  —  as  the  good 
father  explained  to  his  flock  in  his  first  sermon 
after  the  service  of  purification  of  the  build 
ing  —  firmly  fixed  on  the  red  wound  in  the 
side  of  the  great  plaster  figure  on  the  crucifix. 

"Died  of  heart  disease,  didn't  he,  doctor?  " 
said  the  sidewalk  committee  to  Doctor  Ur- 
quhart,  who  had  been  quickly  sent  for;  but 
somehow  the  gossips  were  unable  satisfac 
torily  to  quote  just  what  that  gentleman  said 
in  reply,  before  he  gave  his  testimony  to  a 
representative  of  the  law. 


Times  Fool.  247 

The  very  next  day,  however,  the  world 
knew  all  about  the  events  of  that  night  of 
Bellwood  nights ;  for  was  it  not  able  to  read 
the  following  despatch :  — 

BELLWOOD,  March  25. 

A  serious  fire  in  this  town,  last  night,  was  caused 
by  the  slacking  of  lime  in  the  basement  of  Higgins  & 
Co.'s  store,  due  to  the  rapid  rise  of  the  river  in  the 
spring  freshet.  Three  stores  and  the  old  Congrega 
tional  meeting-house  were  destroyed.  One  man 
died  of  heart-failure  on  account  of  over-exertion,  and 
his  body  was  found  early  in  the  morning  in  the  con 
fessional  box  of  St.  Bridget's  Roman  Catholic  church, 
whither,  it  is  thought,  he  had  gone  in  hopes  of  abso 
lution  at  early  mass-time.  From  papers  in  his  pocket 
it  is  supposed  his  name  was  Henry  Morion,  a  type 
setter  of  Harborside. 

When  Robert  Rodney  read  the  item  at 
bachelor  breakfast  in  his  handsome  studio 
he  exclaimed :  "  By  Jove,  what  a  subject  for  a 
picture,  and  in  my  own  town,  too !  Wonder 
who  the  poor  chap  was?  Too  bad  the  old 
church  went ;  must  have  caught  from  sparks. 
Don't  say  whether  one  of  the  three  stores 
was  Welby's,  but  guess  it  must  have  been, 
so  near  to  Higgins's.  Must  write  to  Amoret 
and  find  out. " 


248          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 


X. 

HIPPOCRATES. 

WEARY  were  the  days  that  followed 
Bellwood's  baptism  of  water  and  of 
fire.  The  world  seemed  to  close  round  Amo- 
ret,  and  its  major  and  minor  miseries  were 
harder  to  bear,  week  by  week,  than  the  greater 
woes  she  had  endured.  It  is  easy  to  be  heroic 
once  for  all ;  but  afterward  ? 

Friends  were  kind,  and  the  hospitality  of 
Squire  Bennett's  house  was  freely  extended 
for  an  indefinite  period,  but  of  course  some 
new  home  had  to  be  sought  as  soon  as  Mr. 
Welby's  convalescence  had  fairly  begun.  Noth 
ing  seemed  left  to  do  save  to  go  to  Mrs. 
Eggstone's  boarding-house,  a  step  as  unwel 
come  to  Amoret  as  to  her  grandfather,  for 
both  had  loved  the  privacy  of  their  own  queer 
home,  nor  had  conceived  the  possibility  of 
any  other  standing-place  for  life  in  Bellwood. 
Mrs.  Eggstone  did  not  mean  to  be  unkindly, 
but  she  was  precise  and  provincial  in  her  no 
tions  of  life,  which  were  for  the  most  part 


Hippocrates.  249 

rather  petty.  The  inveterate  experiences  of 
forty  years  had  made  economy  so  integral  a 
part  of  her  constitution  that  she  saved  by 
mechanism  and  spent  by  moral  struggle. 

Amoret's  own  new  life  of  care  for  her  grand 
father,  in  the  extended  vacation  from  school 
duties  which  she  perforce  was  taking,  was  so 
busy  as  to  leave  little  time  for  elaborate  or 
methodical  exercises  in  melancholy,  but  there 
was  with  her  an  ever-present  sense  of  the 
wrongness  of  things,  which  became  the  dull 
undertone  of  all  the  music  left  in  life.  It 
haunted  her  half-conscious  sleep,  and  awaited 
her  like  a  pale  ghost  in  the  early  dawn,  a 
thought  that  could  be  neither  banished  nor 
eluded.  If,  for  an  instant,  on  waking  she 
queried,  "  What  is  it?"  at  once  came  the  woe 
begone  "  Ah,  yes !  "  to  mind.  It  was  like  a 
perpetual  exaggeration  of  the  gloomy  feeling 
that  overhangs  one  sojourning  in  the  strong 
sea-air  and  monotonous  moors  of  a  treeless, 
sandy  island,  —  as  though  he  had  committed 
some  sin,  or  evil  were  impending.  Once  be 
fore  "had  Amoret  endured  the  merest  slight 
forerunner  of  this  discipline  of  prevalent  heart 
broken  misery:  when,  in  her  early  girlhood,  a 
long  August  drought  had  overhung  the  Bell- 
wood  hills  with  dry  stifling  smoke,  and  the  sun 
had  risen  and  set  like  an  old  copper  pot,  and 


250          The^End  of  the  Beginning. 

the  ministers,  Sunday  by  Sunday,  wrestled 
with  Providence  in  prayer  for  rain,  and  peo 
ple's  faces  looked  sallow  when  they  met.  But 
then  there  was  at  least  no  fault  of  her  own. 
Now,  the  spring  sunshine  smiled  more  sweetly 
day  by  day;  Miss  Tetley,  though  plainly  fail 
ing,  wrote  the  kindest  of  little  notes  in  a  pa 
thetically  wavering  hand,  to  tell  her  "  poor  little 
girl"  how  well  school  affairs  were  going  in  her 
absence,  but  how  much  all  sympathized  with 
her  and  longed  for  her  return ;  in  various  ways, 
too,  of  deftness  or  clumsiness,  the  villagers 
opened  to  her  their  cordial  hearts  and  willing 
hands ;  while  Mr.  Welby,  with  a  more  patient 
smile  on  his  thin  face  and  a  gentle  touch  from 
his  white  hands,  was  as  good  as  anybody  could 
be  expected  to  be  who  had  lost  his  living,  his 
little  stock  of  physical  activity,  and  the  roof- 
tree  which  had  come  to  seem  to  him  his  one 
tent  of  pilgrimage  through  the  world. 

Between  Amoret's  case  and  her  grandfather's, 
however,  there  was  an  all-severing  difference. 
Mr.  Welby  now  felt,  more  keenly  than  ever 
before  in  his  life,  that  there  surely  existed 
some  close  partnership  of  common  sense  and 
immutable  justice  between  his  own  perceptions 
and  those  of  the  Great  Unknown.  Such  a 
sense  is  a  comfort,  whether  you  are  trying  to 
be  good-natured  and  to  make  little  trouble  in  a 


Hippocrates.  251 

boarding-house  rocking-chair,  or  are  wrestling 
with  principalities  and  powers.  Holding  Ni- 
cene,  Athanasian,  Augsburg,  Savoy,  or  Trent 
platforms  to  be  either  lastingly  mischievous 
or  temporarily  serviceable,  Mr.  Welby  still 
clung  with  the  intensity  of  a  Moses  to  the 
three  certitudes,  as  he  called  them,  —  a  Fath 
er's  might,  man's  eternity,  the  oneness  of  jus 
tice.  If  for  the  name  of  the  great  divinity  he 
cared  little,  of  his  long,  inexorable  exactness 
he  had  the  profoundest  sense.  And  now  It  — 
Fate,  Destiny,  Law,  Providence,  what  you 
will  —  had  not  only  allowed  Henry  Morland 
freely  to  go  to  his  own  place,  but  had  so  ar 
ranged  his  exit  that  Amoret  had  perforce  seen 
in  the  clearest  light  all  of  that  blackness  and 
sad  conscienceless  negation  which  Mr.  Welby 
was  now  sure  he  himself  had  foreknown  with 
unerring  divination.  Amoret  alone,  poor  gen 
tle  child,  had  been  deceived ;  Mr.  Welby,  the 
Philosophy  of  Life,  and  the  ethical  regulation 
of  the  universe  were  vindicated  beyond  ques 
tion.  _  The  author  of  the  Philosophy,  thus 
borne  up  by  an  I-told-you-so  of  the  greatest 
firmness,  was  accordingly  sustained  in  his  trials 
by  a  comfortable  and  righteous  egotism  of 
such  power  and  radiance  that  it  naturally  and 
sincerely  assumed  the  guise  of  the  gentlest 
patience  and  most  affectionate  thoughtfulness, 


252         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

—  certainly  a  result  worth  reaching,  and  one 
that  made  Amoret's  devotion  to  the  old  man 
more  willing  and  reverential  than  ever. 

But  poor  Amoret's  world  was  for  the  time 
shattered,  not  vindicated.  A  dull  pain  was 
the  environment  of  her  monotony  of  routine, 
and  everything  she  saw,  or  thought,  or  read 
seemed  to  tend  toward  one  grim  end.  Once  she 
picked  up  a  shabby  old  copy  of  "  The  Bride's 
Tragedy,"  and  her  eyes  fell  on  the  words, 
"  Beware  of  thine  own  soul.  'T  is  but  one 
devil  ever  tempts  a  man,  and  his  name 's  Self." 

When  read,  they  haunted  her;  reason  as 
sured  her  that  she  had  been  blameless,  that 
the  lines  were  Morland's  biography,  not  hers ; 
but  yet,  had  it  not  been  for  her,  Morland  might 
be  alive.  She  had  brought  death's  blight  upon 
this  very  valley  these  soon-to-be  verdant  and 
fragrant  hillsides.  Of  death  itself,  from  her 
childish  days,  she  had  never  felt  the  slightest 
fear.  But  the  shadow  of  destruction  which 
had  now  fallen  on  her  life  was  not  the  one  she 
used  to  think  so  beautiful  in  the  old,  old 
days  —  how  far  away  they  seemed  —  when 
she  played  among  the  gravestones.  Not  only 
was  Morland  dead  in  the  body, — that,  after 
all,  was  not  so  much,  —  but  she  had  laid  in 
the  grave  of  sheeted  memories  the  soul  Mor 
land,  which  she  had  herself,  it  now  appeared, 


Hippocrates.  253 

summoned  from  nothingness  and  given  a  life 
but  fleeting  and  visionary.  Mortality  of  the 
ordinary  sort  was  tenfold  more  endurable  than 
this  death  of  a  ghost ;  and  she  devoutly  wished 
she  had  never  met  him  or  created  him  at  all. 
Weak  and  worn  by  fitful  experience,  notwith 
standing  her  invariable  appearance  of  outward 
calm,  in  the  depths  of  her  heart  she  felt  a 
distrust,  and  despite  of  herself.  She  had  al 
ways  assumed  a  sort  of  moral  responsibility 
for  the  choice  and  even  the  individual  charac 
ter  of  her  associates,  whom  she  felt  to  be  partly 
of  her  own  moulding,  as  certainly  they  were 
indexes  of  her  tastes  and  capacities.  And  now 
her  chief  friend  of  all,  the  one  she  had  most 
ideally  and  unreservedly  admired,  had  proved 
to  be  a  will-o'-the-wisp,  —  nay,  worse,  a  noth 
ing,  a  shade,  and  a  shade  of  infernal  blackness. 
She  herself  must  be  either  a  sinner  or  a  fool. 

Again,  from  the  worldly  point  of  view,  what 
had  been  her  success  in  that  life  to  which  she 
had  been  born?  She  had  fancied  herself,  at 
least  in  a  negative  way,  a  harmless  friend 
of  woods  and  waves,  of  birds  and  flowers ; 
a  pleasant-meaning,  if  naturally  aloof,  liver 
among  men  and  women  and  children,  who 
surely  intended  no  harm  to  anybody,  but  the 
rather  sighed  for  the  ultimate  good.  How 
about  the  results?  Aside  from  her  grand- 


254         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

father,  who  was  mentor  and  not  follower,  and 
her  scholars  down  in  Harborside,  circum 
stances  had  thrown  her  into  peculiar  and,  as 
she  had  hoped,  mutually  helpful  association 
with  two  men.  One  of  these  she  had  sent 
back  to  his  city  home  a  frankly  sybaritic  and 
perpetual  boy,  of  whom  nothing  better  could 
be  said,  —  to  judge  from  his  infrequent  let 
ters, —  than  that,  in  all  save  the  unquestion 
ably  pleasing  pictures  which  he  painted,  he 
was  a  case  of  arrested  development,  perhaps 
not  positively  mischievous  to  himself  or  others. 
The  other  she  had  driven  straight  to  miserable 
suicide,  in  this  very  town,  on  this  very  street, 
just  three  buildings  away  from  her  present 
abode.  Nobody  else  in  Bellwood,  she  re 
flected,  had  ever  been  obliged  to  confess  this 
much  since  old  Fitzpatrick,  who  used  to  kick 
his  wife  when  he  came  home  drunk,  found 
her  hanging  dead  from  a  beam  in  the  empty 
woodshed.  The  end  crowns  the  work ! 

It  could  not  be  said  that  Amoret's  inner 
most  spark  of  trust  in  life's  good  quite  went 
out,  even  in  those  dark  days.  She  knew  that 
love  must  outlast  all  else,  and  that  love  meant 
loyalty  to  the  spirit  of  things  true.  That 
Morland,  under  disguises  hardly  specious,  had 
been  faithless  and  utterly  false  to  that  spirit, 
she  could  not  doubt;  indeed,  she  had  half 


Hippocrates.  255 

feared  as  much  in  some  moments  of  dreari 
ness  before  the  final  crash.  Loves  go,  let 
love  remain ;  if  half-gods  or  no-gods  depart, 
we  may  hope  the  true  god  will  sometime  ap 
pear.  It  was  this  deep  inner  sense,  and  this 
alone,  that  gave  her  strength  to  nurse  Mr. 
Welby  through  long  days  and  dark  nights, 
or  to  be  patient  when  she  tried  to  find  her 
appetite  tempted  by  Mrs.  Eggstone's  frugally 
fried  rump  steak  or  problematic  coffee.  There 
used  occasionally  to  come  to  her,  in  child 
hood's  sleep,  a  dream-face  of  one  summing 
up  all  of  beautiful  ever  known ;  and  still,  in 
her  present  shabby  woes,  she  was  loyal  to 
some  such  far  ideal;  but  meanwhile  the  pity 
of  it  all!  A  sweet  soul  sometimes  feels  as 
much  debased  by  involuntary  association  with 
evil  as  by  the  acceptance  thereof;  and  Amo- 
ret,  for  all  her  inner  purity,  bore  a  grudge 
against  Fate  for  besmirching  her  fair  horizon 
with  blood.  At  best,  her  life  could  never  be 
rid  of  one  great  blighting  memory:  she  had 
been  unwillingly  and  innocently  forced  by 
some  power  outside  herself  to  be  the  last 
link  in  the  chain  that  dragged  a  man  to  his 
death.  As  she  looked  back  upon  the  series 
of  events  she  could  see  no  single  point  for 
severe  blame  of  self,  but  the  whole  had  some 
how  proved  greater  than  the  sum  of  all  its 


256         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

parts,  and  the  very  town  seemed  withered  and 
blackened  because  she  had  lived  in  it. 

But  money  must  be  earned,  that  was  certain; 
all  the  more  because  Mr.  Welby's  poor  dwin 
dling  little  business  was  now,  of  course,  utterly 
gone,  and  there  was  only  the  meagre  insurance 
to  take  its  place.  So,  with  the  promise  of  a 
visit  every  Sunday,  Amoret  went  back  to  her 
Harborside  school.  Some  facts  and  more  fan 
cies  with  reference  to  the  death  of  Morland,  — 
who  had  been  for  years  a  well-known  Harbor- 
side  figure, — had  run  through  the  city,  and 
Amoret's  name  had  been  so  connected  with 
his  as  to  stimulate  conjectural  gossip,  but  with 
out  personal  blame  of  herself,  thanks  to  the 
uncommon  circumstance  that  Mr.  Welby,  Mor 
land,  and  Amoret  had  all  been  persons  who 
knew  how  to  hold  their  tongues,  and  had  never 
been  in  the  habit  of  volunteering  unsolicited 
defences  against  self-constituted  critics.  The 
girls  of  the  school  were  fascinated  by  the 
slight  glamour  of  mysterious  romance  that 
now  hung  about  the  shapely  head  whose  out 
side  and  inside  they  had  always  rapturously 
admired.  Now  they  all  were  sure  that  there 
must  be  some  great  hidden  sorrow  behind 
those  dark  brown  eyes ;  and  for  once  they 
were  right.  Therefore  Amoret's  toils  of  teach 
ing  were  easier  than  ever,  save  that  at  times, 


Hippocrates.  257 

when  she  asked  a  girl  to  distinguish  between 
a  metaphor  and  a  simile,  she  found  it  hard  to 
startle  the  staring-eyed  damsel  from  a  far  away 
reverie  of  which  she  herself  was  the  subject. 
Her  recitations  in  English  literature,  too,  came 
to  have  a  semi-religious  character  in  the  eyes 
of  her  pupils,  who  were  sure  there  was  some 
deep  inner  meaning  when  she  quoted,  "  An 
honest  man 's  the  noblest  work  of  God." 

In  Miss  Tetley's  treatment  of  her  there  was 
a  new  gentleness  and  delicacy  of  sympathy, 
shown  not  only  in  the  old  school  teacher's 
willingness  to  let  details  of  instruction  go  their 
own  way,  or  rather  in  Amoret's  way,  —  for 
Miss  Tetley  now  sat  up  only  on  pleasant  after 
noons,  —  but  also  in  the  fact  that  she  saw  to  it 
that  there  was  more  sunshine  in  the  rooms  and 
less  dankness  and  weeds  in  the  ancient  flower 
garden  inclosed  by  the  classic  fence.  Then, 
likewise,  it  was  pleasant  that  Amoret's  wage 
was  increased,  for  the  school  was  so  prosperous 
that  intending  pupils  were  obliged  to  wait 
their  turn ;  and  thus  the  weekly  stipend  taken 
home  to  Bellwood  seemed  to  Mr.  Welby 
preposterously  large.  He,  himself,  without 
Amoret's  knowledge,  religiously  put  all  of  it 
into  the  savings-bank  in  her  name,  meanwhile 
subsisting  frugally  on  the  insurance-money. 
"  Maybe  I  shall  die  before  that  is  all  gone," 

17 


258         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

he  said  to  himself,  in  cheerful  financial  fore 
cast. 

Amoret's  Sundays  in  Bellwood,  as  her  sum 
mer  term  wore  away  and  the  long  vacation 
approached,  brought  her  two  comforts,  aside 
from  the  physical  rest  and  change.  One  was 
the  new  pleasure  she  took  in  talking  with  Mr. 
Welby  himself.  Now  that,  for  the  first  time 
in  her  life,  she  had  learned  bitter  lessons  in  the 
school  of  woe,  she  appreciated  more  than  ever 
the  simplicity  of  his  character,  and  came  to 
take  an  actual  rather  than  an  obligatory  satis 
faction  in  his  sayings  in  the  Philosophy  of 
Life,  which  was  now  his  daily  companion  and 
chief  vital  function.  It  was  worth  something, 
she  thought,  to  sit  on  the  doorstep  of  the 
boarding-house,  some  warm,  sunshiny,  fragrant 
Sunday  in  May,  and  hear  him  read,  with  im 
pressive  voice  and  modest  twinkle  of  gray 
eyes  and  utter  oblivion  to  a  seeming  assump 
tion  now  and  then :  — 

The  riddle  of  existence  is  solved  only  by  self- 
development  Godward  through  endless  years. 

The  undertone  of  the  Eternal  is  drowned  by  the 
whirring  wheels  of  the  petty. 

I  am  Sin  and  Sainthood. 

A  man  will  forgive  you  for  killing  him,  but  not  for 
laying  your  little  finger  on  his  egotism. 

Nevertheless,  I  am  glad  I  learned  to  read. 


Hippocrates.  259 

The  gentleman  does  not  speak  of  money  or  the 
lack  of  it. 

Quit  talk  about  three  things :  numbers ,  doctrine, 
and  misunderstanding. 

It  takes  intellect  to  appreciate  the  beauty  of  inde 
cent  books. 

Rome  deified  men  and  brutalized  gods. 

The  library  is  a  church,  its  alcoves  shrines. 

Philology  is  to  literature  as  brick-measuring  to 
architecture. 

Heterogeneous  enough,  surely,  and  not 
always,  perhaps,  any  newer  or  truer  than 
most  attempts  to  pack  wide  knowledge  into 
little  nuts ;  but  Amoret,  somehow,  found  them 
increasingly  helpful.  That  one  about  self- 
development  and  the  endless  years  —  oh,  it 
the  thought  was  not  true  nothing  was  true, 
nothing  left  to  live  by;  but  with  it  to-day  was 
divine.  At  any  rate,  she  must  be  all  she  could  to 
all  she  could,  just  as  the  dear,  gentle  old  man 
was  with  his  courtly  compliments  to  Mrs.  Egg- 
stone  on  the  appearance  of  an  occasionally 
edible  potato  or  unexpectedly  delicate  griddle- 
cake,  and  all  his  endeavors  to  make  his  poor, 
wee  world  just  a  little  more  comfortable  for 
his  living  in  it  one  day  more. 

"  Put  this  in  your  book,  grandpa,"  said 
Amoret,  as  she  kissed  his  thin  cheek  one  Mon 
day  morning  just  before  train-time:  "'Only 


260         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

the  gentleman  and  the  gentlewoman  can  be  ill 
gracefully.' " 

Her  other  Bellwood  comfort,  though  a 
minor  one,  was  in  its  way  rather  pleasant :  the 
helpfulness  of  Dr.  Urquhart.  The  doctor  is 
the  modern  priest,  who  confesses  a  man  and 
shrives  him  and  prescribes  penance  as  he  will, 
meanwhile  getting  his  bread  from  the  uncertain 
alms  of  the  laity.  John  Urquhart  was  a  doctor 
from  the  third  and  fourth  generation.  Father, 
grandfather,  and  greatgrandfather  had  dis 
pensed  pills,  potions,  and  common-sense  from 
gigs  or  saddle-bags,  and  it  seemed  as  natural 
for  their  descendant  to  follow  the  ancestral  line 
as  for  a  Brahmin  to  continue  in  his  caste. 

Once  when  "  young  doctor  John,"  as  his 
relatives  had  to  call  him  for  distinction's  sake, 
was  vaccinating  Mrs.  Eggstone's  scared  child, 
and  it  was  all  over  before  the  tearful  little  girl 
thought  he  had  begun,  she  said  in  delight: 
"  Why,  that  was  only  a  scratch."  "  Oh  yes," 
said  the  smiling  practitioner,  "  I  'm  a  scratcher 
by  profession.  First  I  had  to  scratch  for  a  bit 
of  money  when  I  taught  day-school  up  in  the 
Wyoming  valley  or  singing-school  way  over  in 
Nantucket,  and  now,  you  see,  I  have  to  scratch 
for  a  living." 

Just  then  Mr.  Welby  chanced  to  walk  into 
the  sitting-room,  and,  picking  up  the  little  girl, 


Hippocrates.  16 1 

now  smiling  through  her  tears,  sat  down  on  the 
hair-cloth  sofa,  taking  pains  as  he  did  so  to 
cover  with  his  person  the  worn  rip,  on  general 
principles  of  benignity  to  the  world  at  large. 

"  I  did  n't  know  you  ever  were  in  Nantucket, 
doctor,"  said  he,  administering  a  peppermint 
to  the  child,  who  was  delightedly  pointing  to  a 
minute  drop  of  blood  on  her  arm.  "  You 
don't  ever  say  much  about  your  past,"  he 
added,  tentatively. 

The  doctor  laughed  a  happy  little  laugh,  and 
retorted :  "  Medical  men  have  enough  to  do  in 
taking  care  of  the  present.  I  always  thought 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  sense  in  the  head  of 
the  old  fellow  who  remarked,  '  Where  I  am, 
there  I  be.'  But  speaking  of  Nantucket,  it's  all 
put  away  in  my  memory.  Nothing  is  quite  so 
clear  in  our  recollections  as  the  times  when  we 
have  the  least  money,  and  are  trying  to  make 
a  specialty  of  things  in  general." 

"  Nobody  has  much  money  on  those  fre 
quent  wind-swept  moors,  does  he?"  said  Mr. 
Welby. 

"^Not  unless  it's  the  summer  boarders," 
said  the  doctor.  "  The  native  jacks-of-all- 
trades  have  to  sweep  the  Grand  Banks  and  the 
sand  banks  for  what  they  get  to  live  on,  now 
that  whale-fishing's  gone." 

"  I  was  there  for  two  or  three  days  when  I 


262          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

was  a  lad,  bluefishing,"  said  Mr.  Welby ;  "  and 
1  was  struck  with  the  pathetic,  worn  faces  of 
the  women." 

"  More  than  here?  "  said  the  doctor. 

"  Perhaps  so,"  said  Mr.  Welby,  "  because  in 
the  sea  air  they  get  skinnier  and  bonier  than  our 
inland  mistresses  of  piecrust  and  frying-pan." 

"  Well,"  said  the  doctor,  "  there  is  certainly 
an  added  pathos  in  sea-women's  lives  of  which 
we  of  the  inland  country  know  nothing  —  they 
have  so  little  but  monotonous  drudgery  or 
swift  tragedy.  Up  here  among  the  hills,  for 
that  matter,  all  romance  seems  driven  out  of 
womanhood  save  its  stock  of  Christian  names ; 
when  some  farmer's  wife  dies,  worn  out  at 
forty-two,  you  find  Ormacinda,  or  Theda,  or 
Zula,  or  something  like  that,  on  the  plated 
plate  of  her  stained  pine  coffin." 

"  Is  n't  it  queer  that  all  fisher  folk  seem  to 
have  an  unlimited  stock  of  time  and  patience? 
Nobody  dreams  of  having  anything  to  do  to 
day;  everything  is  to  be  done  the  week  after 
next." 

"Why  is  it,  do  you  suppose,  that  those 
who  have  the  hardest  work  to  do  in  the  world 
are  often  the  softest  in  manner?  I  remember 
going  once  to  a  Nantucket  prayer-meeting 
in  a  school-house  seven  miles  from  town, 
snuggled  beneath  a  dreary  little  suggestion  of 


Hippocrates.  263 

a  hill.  One  of  the  roughest  of  old  tars  was 
called  on  to  pray.  I  could  only  think  of  him 
as  bellowing  oaths  with  the  roar  of  a  foghorn, 
but  he  knelt  down  and  addressed  the  Lord 
with  the  voice  of  a  sucking  dove." 

"  Perhaps  his  courage  was  taken  out  of  him 
by  the  stormy  vicissitudes  of  his  life." 

"  Oh,  no,  Mr.  Welby,  not  that ;  nobody  in 
this  world  is  good  for  anything  until  he  has 
had  a  hard  time ;  but  your  man  who  has  been 
through  danger  knows  when  to  be  humble." 

Nobody  in  this  world  is  good  for  anything 
until  he  has  had  a  hard  time?  then  I  ought  to 
be  good  for  something,  for  my  time  has  been 
hard  enough,  thought  Amoret,  who  had  come 
in  and  said  a  pleasant  good  morning,  and  sat 
silent  in  the  other  corner  of  the  room.  When 
your  statue  of  Faith  has  been  rudely  knocked 
from  its  pedestal,  and  you  are  trying  to  re 
adjust  your  moral  universe,  all  black  and  ma 
lign,  you  would  rather  listen  than  chatter ;  arid 
that  was  Amoret's  mood  nowadays. 

"  Well,  doctor,"  said  the  old  man,  as  he 
walk'ed  to  the  door  with  his  friend,  "  I  was 
humble  enough  when  first  I  drove  through 
one  of  those  moor  holes  on  that  island.  Why, 
it  was  hemmed  in  with  inextricable  swampy 
growth  on  both  sides,  and  looked  like  a  blood- 
red  pool  fathoms  deep;  I  never  shall  forget 


264         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

it"  Mr.  Welby's  experiences  as  a  traveller 
were  both  limited  and  ancient. 

"  Quite  an  allegory  of  life,"  said  the  doctor, 
as  he  nodded  his  head  in  cheery  good-bye  to 
Amoret,  and  told  the  little  girl  not  to  touch 
the  sore  spot  if  her  arm  began  to  ache  or 
itch  a  little.  "  Blood  and  flood  and  fire  are  n't 
so  awful  when  you  've  driven  through  them, 
after  all.  Well,  sir,  you  are  getting  along  so 
finely  that  you  might  as  well  turn  me  adrift." 

"  Not  quite  yet,  doctor,"  said  the  old  man, 
who  disliked  the  thought  of  losing  the  ozone 
of  his  society.  "  Come  once  or  twice  more 
just  to  see  that  I  don't  have  a  relapse ;  I  go 
out  walking  twice  a  day  now,  you  know,  and 
I  might  catch  cold."  But  the  doctor  was 
already  putting  his  hitch-weight  into  his  nonde 
script  two-wheeled  vehicle ;  meanwhile  the 
white  horse  whinnied  appreciatively,  and  got 
three  little  pats  in  return. 

"Just  who  is  Doctor  Urquhart,  grandpa?" 
queried  Amoret.  "  All  I  ever  knew  about 
him,  before  he  began  to  come  to  see  you,  was 
that  he  has  lived  here  two  or  three  years,  is 
always  good-natured  and  never  in  a  hurry,  and 
is  going  to  marry  Miss  Bennett." 

"  Is  he?  "  said  Mr.  Welby  ;  "  that 's  too  bad  ; 
she  is  n't  quite  up  to  him,  though  a  little 
money  at  home  is  convenient  for  a  doctor. 


Hippocrates.  265 

Yes,  I  remember  now,  I  did  hear  of  that 
engagement  a  while  ago ;  too  bad,  too  bad." 

"  Don't  worry  about  it,  grandpa;  you  are  n't 
responsible  for  all  the  folks  in  the  world,"  said 
Amoret,  with  a  slight  feeling  on  her  own  part 
that  the  match  between  Gertrude  Bennett  and 
the  doctor  would  be  hardly  "  appropriate,"  as 
the  world  puts  it.  "  Gertrude  is  bright  and 
pretty,  and  was  ever  so  good  to  us  when  we 
were  at  the  house." 

"  Oh,  I  know  it,"  said  he ;  "  that 's  all  very 
well,  but  marriage  is  too  great  a  risk  to  ven 
ture;  don't  ever  get  married,  child." 

"  I  never  shall,"  said  Amoret,  simply. 

"  So  much  the  better,"  said  Mr.  Welby. 

"  Do  you  suppose,"  said  Amoret,  "  the 
doctor  meant  to  minister  to  a  mind  diseased 
when  he  said  that  about  driving  through  blood 
and  flood  and  fire?  That 's  just  what  you  and 
I  have  been  doing." 

"  Not  a  bit,  not  a  bit,  not  at  all,  of  course 
not,"  said  Mr.  Welby  with  alacrity,  and  an 
earnest  desire  to  change  the  subject  as  soon 
as  possible.  He  was  getting  so  strong  now 
that  he  was  resuming  his  old  function  of 
guardian  of  a  little  girl  who  must  be  shielded 
from  things  by  superior  masculine  discretion. 
"  That 's  just  his  talk ;  sometimes  he  has  an 
idea,  a  pretty  good  one  too." 


266         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

"  I  'm  glad  he  has  ideas  sometimes,"  said 
Amoret,  with  a  tiny  little  laugh,  her  first  since 
It  happened.  He  heard  it  and  was  delighted ; 
while  she  went  on :  "  That 's  more  than  some 
people  do  in  their  life-time." 

"  Well,  little  miss,"  said  the  philosopher, 
"you  asked  who  he  was;  now  just  come  over 
here  and  I  '11  tell  you  about  him.  Let  me  see, 
how  much  I  know.  Urquhart,  John,  M.  D.  — 
you  remember  Leigh  Hunt  said  the  height  of 
his  ambition  was  to  see  his  name  printed 
in  reverse  order  —  was  born  somewhere  down 
in  Virginia,  or  was  it  South  Carolina?  His 
father  must  have  been  a  country  doctor  of  the 
old  school,  with  a  rambling  practice  and 
maybe  a  poor  farm  that  his  children  —  and  I 
suppose  there  were  plenty  of  them  —  had  to 
take  care  of  as  best  they  could.  John  very 
likely  made  up  his  mind  he  'd  have  a  better 
education  than  his  father,  so  he  and  his  brother 
went  to  some  academy  near  by,  boarded  them 
selves,  and  picked  up  what  ninepences  they 
could  earn  until  first  one  and  then  the  other 
got  through." 

"By  the  orthodox  exit,  or  prematurely?" 
said  Amoret,  absent-mindedly. 

"  Oh,  they  graduated  all  right,  though  I 
don't  believe  they  had  more  than  one  black 
suit  between  them.  But  they  could  n't  have 


Hippocrates.  267 

been  in  the  same  class ;  so  the  elder  could  pass 
it  along,  like  his  text-books  and  his  stock  of 
experience,  to  the  other.  Then  they  wandered 
north,  and  taught  '  deestrick '  school  winters, 
and  banged  their  tuning-forks  in  singing- 
schools,  and  so  one  contrived  to  make  him 
self  a  minister  or  a  lawyer  and  John  a  doctor ; 
for  when  he  got  through  school  he  must  have 
started  for  the  city  medical  colleges  and  fought 
his  way  through  one  or  two  of  them  in  the 
same  style.  Oh,  why  did  n't  my  father  make 
me  go  to  college !  "  said  Mr.  Welby,  in  abrupt 
personal  application  of  his  supposititious  life 
and  times  of  Urquhart. 

"  You  know  more  than  most  college  pro 
fessors,  if  you  don't  know  much  about  Dr. 
Urquhart,"  said  his  affectionate  descendant. 

"  More  than  some,  perhaps,"  was  the  dis 
creet  reply  of  the  author  of  the  Philosophy 
of  Life,  "  but  not  as  much  as  I  ought  to. 
And  one  thing  is  sure,  I  don't  know  as  much 
medicine  as  John  Urquhart,  or  as  much  about 
farming,  nor  do  I  have  as  much  practical  horse- 
sense." 

"  What  has  farming  to  do  with  '  doctoring,' 
as  Mrs.  Eggstone  calls  it?  I  can  see  the  con 
nection  between  horse-sense  and  veterinary 
surgery,"  said  Amoret,  who  was  just  weary 
enough  to  want  to  hear  her  grandfather  talk, 


268         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

without  being  particular  what  the  subject  was ; 
Dr.  Urquhart  would  answer  as  well  as  any 
thing;  and  it  was  a  pleasure  to  see  Mr. 
Welby's  restored  animation. 

"  A  good  deal,  my  dear.  Good  food  and 
good  health  are  the  foci  of  the  ellipse  of 
life,"  said  he,  wondering  whether  the  obser 
vation  were  worth  putting  into  shape  for  the 
book.  "You  see  the  doctor  spent  so  much  time 
clearing  up  pastures,  and  mowing,  and  hoeing 
corn,  and  digging  potatoes,  and  so  on,  that  he 
never  goes  by  a  dilapidated  farm  without  wish 
ing  he  could  set  it  right  If  he  had  his  way 
he'd  run  a  subsoil  drain  there,  lay  a  stone 
wall  here,  make  Jones  put  his  cart  under 
cover  and  clear  up  the  rotting  lumber  around 
his  back  door  for  the  kitchen  stove,  and  tell 
Smith  the  black  pool  in  his  barnyard  is 
enough  to  give  all  the  children  sore  throats." 

"  What  was  that  story  Gertrude  told  me 
about  his  digging  graves  for  a  couple  of 
children  with  his  own  hands?"  said  Amoret, 
ignoring  her  ancestor's  somewhat  fanciful  de 
scriptions  of  southern  agriculture. 

"  Why,  that  was  all  there  was  to  tell.  A 
couple  of  Phin  Rogers's  children,  just  across 
the  river,  died  of  scarlet  fever,  in  spite  of  all 
the  doctor  could  do,  and  so  he  buried  them 
himself  and  said  the  Lord's  prayer  and  the 


Hippocrates.  269 

'  Suffer  little  children  '  text  over  their  poor 
scraps  of  bodies  as  he  filled  the  short  graves. 
Everybody  else  was  afraid  to  go  near  them. 
And  the  worst  of  it  is  that  such  cases  are  the 
very  ones  that  never  pay  anything.  Somebody 
was  saying  the  other  day,  in  our  beautiful 
down-east  dialect,  that  '  Urquhart  'd  got  quite 
er  practice,  but  't  want  good  fer  nothin.' " 

"  Yes,  he  seems  to  be  gentleness  itself." 

"  Not  so  very  gentle,  they  say,  when  he 
turned  a  brute  of  a  husband  out  of  his  own 
wife's  bed-room,  and  told  him  he  'd  throw  him 
down  stairs  if  he  came  back  into  the  house 
before  the  crisis  was  passed." 

"  Doctors  must  have  a  pretty  good  chance 
to  see  what  a  failure  marriage  is,"  said  Amoret, 
with  the  positiveness  of  pessimism. 

"  I  suppose  so,"  said  Mr.  Welby,  "  but  Dr. 
Urquhart,  they  say,  is  sometimes  a  belated 
matchmaker  himself,  and  sends  for  the  minister 
or  the  justice,  while  he  stays  with  the  groom, 
just  to  see  that  the  future  happy  husband  don't 
chance  to  be  absent  when  the  ceremony  ought 
to  begin  "  —  and  he  gave  a  little  interior  laugh. 
"  Another  of  his  great  hobbies  is  that  poor  folks 
ought  to  be  more  careful  about  saving  meat- 
scraps  and  making  good  wholesome  soups; 
and  then  he 's  made  the  town  authorities  put 
in  two  or  three  new  watering-troughs  on  the 


270         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

long  hill  roads  over  west,"  said  Mr.  Welby, 
who  found  his  garrulity  and  his  subject  simul 
taneously  and  indefinitely  increase  in  extent. 

Amoret  looked  at  her  watch;  it  was  Mon 
day  morning,  and  getting  near  train-time.  "  He 
must  be  a  busy  man,"  said  she,  as  her  grand 
father's  pause  made  it  seem  necessary  to  make 
some  audible  sound. 

"  Not  so  busy  but  what  he  went  into  the 
grammar-school  twice  a  week,  all  last  fall,  to 
teach  them  singing ;  he  showed  me  a  gold  pen 
the  youngsters  gave  him  as  a  present  when  he 
got  through.  And  then  he  takes  a  good  deal 
of  interest  in  the  library,  especially  in " 

"  Do  you  know  where  my  little  one-volume 
Shakespeare  is,  grandpa?  I  want  to  take  it 
back  with  me." 

"  Yes,  over  on  that  corner-table ;  I  had  it 
yesterday.  Do  you  know,  Amoret  child,  I 
believe  the  all-round  man  does  more  good  in 
the  world  than  your  modern  specialist !  " 

"  Whom  do  you  mean,"  said  she,  "  Shake 
speare  or  Dr.  Urquhart?  " 

"  Both  of  them,"  said  the  philosopher,  almost 
fiercely. 

"  Now  be  a  good  boy  until  next  Saturday 
night,  and  don't  walk  enough  to  get  tired,  or 
let  any  caller  stay  long  enough  to  weary  you 
out.  Good-bye,"  and  she  gave  him  a  kiss  just 


Hippocrates.  271 

like  those  she  used  to  leave  behind  her  when 
she  went  to  play  in  the  graveyard  :  long  enough 
to  be  sweet  and  short  enough  to  sharpen  its 
memory. 

"  Good-bye,  child,"  said  he  at  the  door.  As 
Amoret  waved  her  supplementary  farewell 
from  the  sidewalk  gate  the  old  man  stood  on 
the  porch  a  moment  and  looked  up  toward 
the  sunlight  that  bathed  his  bald  head  and 
smooth  face  in  a  grateful  warmth.  "  Pleas 
ant  weather  nowadays,"  he  soliloquized.  "  I  'm 
glad  Amoret  is  getting  a  little  more  cheerful ; 
I  chatter  away  about  anything,  so  long  as  I 
can  take  her  mind  off  herself." 

As  the  train  clattered  southward  past  the 
huge  ice-houses,  all  filled  to  their  roofs  with 
the  garnered  store  of  winter's  harvest,  Amo- 
ret's  thought  recurred  for  a  minute  to  the 
morning's  visit  and  following  talk :  "  How 
strange  it  is  we  know  so  little  about  people 
in  our  own  small  bailiwicks !  I  've  known 
Dr.  Urquhart  by  sight,  and  to  speak  to,  for 
two  or  three  years,  but  I  never  really  knew 
anythmg  about  him.  I  'm  not  sure  but  his 
way  of  life  is  the  best  one,  whatever  happens ; 
if  this  world  is  all,  it  surely  is;  if  there's  to  be 
a  series  of  worlds  for  us,  why,  it's  a  good 
start.  There  are  plenty  of  mysteries  in  this 
universe,  but  there  are  one  or  two  certainties. 


272         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

Anyway,  he  's  done  grandpa  a  world  of  good 
—  more  by  his  coming,  I  believe,  than  by 
his  liniments,  and  porous  plasters,  and  tonics. 
Isn't  it  good  that  granddad  is  so  well?  I 
really  don't  see  but  that  Richard  is  actually 
himself  again !  " 

"What's  the  name  of  the  next  station?" 
said  an  old  woman  on  the  seat  in  front,  with 
that  abrupt  sense  of  proprietorship  which 
characterizes  the  rural  traveller. 

"  Saxony,"  said  Amoret. 


One  or  Two.  273 


XI. 
ONE   OR  TWO. 

July  12.  This  is  my  twenty-first  birthday  — 
anniversary,  the  purists  would  have  us  say  — 
and  in  my  old  age  I,  Amoret  Wenton,  spinster, 
nevertheless  being  of  sound  mind,  am  going 
to  begin  to  keep  a  journal.  Not  a  diary,  for 
I  care  not  whether  my  entries  be  daily,  or 
quarterly,  or  decennial,  a  hundred  pages  or  a 
single  line.  I  must  be  placidly  good  to  dear 
grandpa,  and  ought  to  be  to  my  scholars, 
when  next  term  begins  and  I  go  back  to  Har- 
borside  as  "  first  assistant  to  the  principal  in 
charge."  Poor  cousin  Lodema,  I  fear  me, 
will  never  be  well  again,  and  surely  I  ought 
to  hold  up  her  hands  as  Aaron  held  up  Hur's, 
—  or  was  it  Moses  that  held  up  Aaron's?  At 
any  rate,  my  function  seems  to  be  that  of  gen 
eral  helper  in  two  little  corners  of  this  weary 
and  wicked  world.  Ever  since  that  awful  night 
last  spring,  I  have  sometimes  felt  so  dreary 
and  hateful  that  I  want  to  have  some  place 
wherein  to  put  my  wicked  self,  so  that  it 
18 


274          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

shan't  trouble  anybody  else.  When  my  great- 
grandmother  became  engaged  —  fifteen  years 
old,  poor  little  thing  —  she  went  out  into  the 
garden,  dug  a  deep  hole  under  a  cherry  tree, 
and  buried  her  dolls.  I  shall  never  be  engaged 
—  what  a  hateful  word  —  but  I  've  buried  my 
dolls  all  the  same.  There  are  three  Amorets: 
first,  the  outside  one,  who  "  bears  up  "  so  won 
derfully,  the  kind  world  says ;  then  the  other 
one  whose  heart  has  ached  so,  ever  since  her 
dream  died  ;  and  last  and  least  the  inner  speck 
or  spark  that  knows  the  great  plan  will  some 
how  and  somewhere  come  true  and  sweet 
in  the  mysterious  event.  Perhaps  this  book, 
therefore,  will  be  more  trinitarian  than  unita- 
rian,  but  I  mean  to  make  it  my  tell-tale,  for 
I  cannot  weight  dear  grandpa  or  poor  cousin 
with  my  burden  of  woes,  and  I  have  n't  an 
other  friend  in  the  wide  world.  I  sometimes 
think  I  don't  really  and  inly  love  even  them, 
though  cousin  Lodema  is  so  good  to  me,  and 
what  could  I  do  without  grandpa? 

July  13.  —  Here  is  my  second  day,  and  I 
make  an  entry,  not  as  in  duty  bound,  but  as 
I  chance  to  wish.  Dear  me ;  this  book  must 
never  be  seen  by  a  living  soul,  or  a  dead  one 
either!  just  look  at  what  I  wrote  yesterday. 
Two  note-books  are  too  many  for  one  house ; 
but  grandpa's  is  of  blessing,  mine  of  bane,  or 


One  or  Two.  275 

at  least  a  sort  of  scapegoat.  Poor  goat! 
what  a  pathetic  picture  of  Holman  Hunt's; 
why  should  one  thing  suffer  for  another?  But 
I  have  suffered,  and  I  do,  and  was  I  to  blame? 
Perhaps  I  am  going  to  develop  a  New  Eng 
land  conscience  of  the  "  Am  I  his,  or  am  I 
not,"  order.  "  Nobody  asked  you,  sir,  she 
said."  Humor  is  grimly  severe,  and  severity 
is  grimly  humorous. 

July  20.  —  I  have  a  mind  to  copy  some  of 
my  poor  old  poems  in  this  book;  perhaps 
that  would  reduce  the  weight  of  the  burden 
of  past  sin  I  must  carry.  I  can  make  believe 
this  is  publication:  they  will  never  get  a 
chance  of  issue  in  any  other  way.  Here  is 
one  I  wrote  ever  so  long  ago :  — 

AT  SUNSET. 

Adown  the  burning  west  the  splendor  goes, 
Its  glories  brightening  as  they  fade  and  die, 

And  in  the  lessening  light  each  cloudlet  glows 
In  rosy  red  against  the  violet  sky. 

For  see,  the  happy  day  is  near  to  death, 
The  lowlier  hills  have  faded  from  our  sight, 

And  in  the  leaves  there  stirs  the  chilling  breath 
Of  death's  twin  sister,  icy-throated  night. 

Our  love,  dear  heart,  its  dewy  dawntide  had, 
And  then  it  waxed  unto  its  perfect  noon  ; 

Alas  !  shall  love  grow  sad  that  now  is  glad, 
And  vanish  ?  for  death's  twilight  cometh  soon. 


2y 6         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

Not  so  ;  the  sun  that  dies  beneath  the  west 
To-morrow's  east  shall  newly  glorify, 

And  death  itself  in  death's  own  tomb  shall  rest, 
An  episode  in  love's  eternity  ! 

Well,  that  is  what  love  ought  to  be,  I  know. 
Has  any  one  ever  proved  it?  Very  like, — 
surely ;  but  not  I.  How  easy  it  is  to  preach 
to  others  and  then  be  a  castaway.  Yet  I  know 
the  spark  is  a  possible  fire  and  that  it  still  glows 
far  under  the  dismal  waste  of  many  a  life. 

Here  is  No.  2.  I  wrote  it  before  I  ever  had 
a  trouble  in  the  world,  or  lost  a  friend,  ex 
cepting  poor  father  and  mother,  that  I  never 
knew.  That  is  the  way  most  poems  are  writ 
ten,  I  suppose,  —  make-believe  love  and  fanci 
ful  bereavement :  — 

AFTER. 

Beneath  the  trees  that  shade  the  lonely  river 
The  ancient  house  is  standing  as  before, 

Across  the  porch  the  wonted  shadows  quiver, 
And  still  the  bluebells  blossom  by  the  door. 

I  see  a  nameless  Something  lying  whitely 
Behind  the  swaying  curtains  of  her  room  ; 

Across  the  breast  the  hands  are  folded  tightly, 
And  in  their  icy  clutch  two  roses  bloom. 

Alike  to  her  to-day  are  joy  and  sadness ; 

Why  do  I  weep  ?  the  shut  eyes  cannot  see, 
Her  ears  are  deaf  to  sounds  of  woe  or  gladness, 

And  those  mute  lips  shall  never  speak  to  me. 


One  or  Two.  277 

But  still  beside  the  dark  and  lonely  river 
The  ancient  house  is  standing  as  before, 

Across  the  porch  the  wonted  shadows  quiver, 
And  still  the  bluebells  blossom.by  the  door. 

Very  well,  then,  I  suppose  they  do.  Now 
that  might  be  printed  in  a  country  newspaper, 
and  somebody  might  cut  it  out  and  paste  it  in 
a  scrapbook,  with  a  tear-fall  somewhere  on  the 
dingy  type.  That  is  n't  the  worst  death,  though. 

July  23.  —  I  think,  after  all,  I  will  put  an 
end  to  two  things  in  this  book,  and  not  spoil 
any  more  pages  with  them.  One  is  pessim 
ism,  for  if  there  be  one  thing  in  the  world 
I  utterly  loathe  it  is  that.  All  tends  to  good, 
and  if  I  am  a  part  of  all  I  also  must,  and  all 
my  woebegone  sufferings.  Out  with  you,  for 
ever;  though  I  'm  glad  of  you,  for  I  love  Love 
better  because  I  Ve  seen  its  hideous  opposite. 
I  do  hope,  though,  that  I  can  get  rid  of  things 
by  simply  saying  "  out  with  you,"  or  "  aroint 
thee,  witch,"  on  paper. 

The  other  beginning  that  shall  have  swift 
ending  is  the  putting  of  poetry,  or  rather 
verse-scribbling,  into  these  innocent  pages. 
I  will  sin  just  once  more,  however,  and  copy 
this  new  thing  I  have  been  writing  the  last  day 
or  two.  It 's  wrong,  somehow,  but  I  can't 
correct  it,  so  if  I  keep  it  here  maybe  I  can 
better  it  by  and  by.  The  idea  is  all  right,  but 


278          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

the  execution  lacks,  wherein  it  adequately  re 
presents  the  poor  poet  that  produced  it : 


ONCE    ON   A   TIME. 

Once  on  a  time  a  palace  stood 

In  the  midst  of  a  paradise; 
Dull  folks  called  it  a  house  in  a  wood, 

But  they  must  have  been  blind  in  their  eyes, 
For  I  who  was  born  in  it  very  well  knew 

That  its  roof  had  a  golden  glow  — 
"  Oh,  tell  me  where  was  that  palace  fair  !  " 

My  child,  it  was  long  ago. 

Once  on  a  time  the  westward  hills 

Were  mountains,  every  one, 
And  just  beyond  were  islands  and  seas 

Aflame  in  the  setting  sun ; 
And  up  in  the  air  were  splendid  steeds 

All  galloping  to  and  fro  — 
"  Oh,  tell  me  true  what  they  used  to  do ! " 

My  child,  it  was  long  ago, 

Once  on  a  time  the  girls  and  boys 

Were  as  wise  as  men  to-day, 
And  they  used  to  see  such  wonderful  things 

By  the  brooks  that  have  run  away ; 
Golden  fishes  in  emerald  pools, 

And  diamonds  over  the  snow  — 
"  Oh,  tell  me  when  they  will  come  again  ! " 

My  child,  it  was  long  ago. 

Once  on  a  time,  the  whole  year  long, 
The  stars  and  the  moon  and  the  sun 

Had  nothing  to  do  but  to  wake  me  up 
And  to  tell  when  day  was  done ; 


One  or  Two.  279 

But  now  they  shine  in  a  different  way 
On  graves  that  are  long  and  low  — 
"  Oh,  tell  me  why  there  's  a  tear  in  your  eye  ?  " 
My  child,  it  was  long  ago. 

That  is  meant  to  be  an  idealization  of  the 
dear  old  bookshop,  or  of  anybody's  childhood 
home;  which  intention  I  record  here  lest 
sometime  I  come  on  the  scrap  and  wonder 
what  it  all  is  about.  This  is  a  picture  of  a 
horse.  Protean  Amoret !  a  confident  lover,  a 
stricken  mourner  for  a  dead  girl,  a  reminiscen- 
tial  octogenarian. 

July  28. — The  doctor  and  Gertrude  Ben 
nett  are  not  engaged,  after  all,  and  never  have 
thought  of  such  a  thing,  —  for  what  in  the 
world  do  I  put  that  into  my  journal?  My  pen 
writes  like  planchette  this  morning,  and  re 
produces  the  last  outside  influence.  Well,  let 
the  words  stand :  I  would  be  ashamed  to  take 
enough  interest  in  them  to  cut  out  the  leaf. 
One  marriage  less  in  the  world,  for  the  time 
being.  Let  them  wait ;  reflection  saves  many 
a  mistake,  and  I  respected  the  gay  Gertrude 
and  the  apathetic  doctor  too  much  to  want 
them  to  make  any  mistakes  in  so  awful  a 
thing.  What  a  gossipy  town  this  is !  Why 
don't  they  gossip  about  me?  perhaps  they  do. 
By  the  way,  Gertrude  Bennett  is  far  the  loveli 
est  girl  in  Bellwood;  her  swift  moods  are 


280         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

cloaks,  as  airy  as  gossamer,  for  a  light  and 
radiant  nature ;  she  might  captivate  anybody, 
unless  he  were  a  philosopher  like  me  or  a 
steadily  amiable  drudge  like  the  doctor. 
There  is  something  stolid  in  steadiness;  I  dis 
like  people  whose  photographs  always  are 
good,  and  have  an  expression  as  invariable  as 
a  haystack  or  the  side  of  a  house.  Whom  are 
you  talking  about?  the  doctor?  Suppose, 
my  dear  Amoret,  you  begin  by  being  stolidly 
or  stupidly  good  yourself,  for  a  year  or  two, 
and  then  throw  stones  through  your  neighbors' 
conservatory  windows.  Speaking  of  the  doc 
tor,  what  a  lovable  dog  he  has  ;  just  a  common 
mongrel  smuzzly  cur;  that  is  the  kind  that 
knows  the  most  and  has  the  biggest  heart. 
We  had  such  a  good  time  in  the  garden  the 
other  day,  when  the  doctor  was  making  his 
final  call  on  grandpa.  I  know  he  understood 
me  before  we  shook  hands  ;  and  full  anticipa 
tory  sympathy  is  the  truest  mark  of  soul.  If 
that  dog  has  no  soul  I  have  none.  I  wonder 
if  he  beneficently  influences  the  doctor,  or  the 
doctor  him.  His  name,  it  seems,  is  Don 
Quixote.  I  don't  see  how  he  finds  time  to 
read.  My  he 's  are  as  mixed  as  in  a  school 
girl's  theme.  Don  Quixote  does  n't  need  to 
read ;  he  apprehends. 

August  3.  —  I  believe  I  am  slowly  getting 


One  or  Two.  281 

to  see  a  little  of  the  joy  of  just  using  the  min 
ute  right,  whether  it  be  foggy  or  sunshiny. 
And  I  hardly  dare  write  it,  lest  it  sound  like 
vainglory  or  temerity,  but  I  half  rejoice  over 
this  duty  of  struggling  and  casting  off.  Life 
is  the  braver  and  brighter  for  death,  and  now 
I  have  seen  death  I  live  the  more,  just  as  I 
used  to  play  in  the  graveyard  on  effigies  of 
skulls  and  crossbones  and  chubby  angels. 
Deaths  and  marriages  ought  to  be  beginnings, 
not  endings,  and  now-a-days  I  feel  as  though 
I  had  been  married,  sometime,  to  the  idea  of 
present  duty,  and  I  mean  to  make  it  lovely 
and  happy  if  I  can.  Why,  even  the  old 
mediaevals  used  to  see  that  love,  for  anybody 
or  anything,  was  a  passion  that  went  out  rather 
than  in ;  an  enthusiasm  that  blessed  and 
ennobled  the  lover—  a  "  a  habit  of  joy,"  some 
body  has  called  it;  what  a  good  term  !  "  Love 
that  withdraws  my  thoughts  from  all  vile 
things,"  says  the  Vita  Nuova. 

August  4.  —  I  would  rather  find  a  model 
than  hunt  up  a  critic,  and  I  would  rather  be  a 
model  than  find  one.  I  wonder  if  I  ever  shall? 
Who  are  my  models?  Jesus  is  one,  grandpa 
is  another,  and  sometimes  I  imitate  even  plain 
Doctor  Urquhart  in  his  good-natured  jog-trot 
of  cheery  helpfulness.  Plenty  of  people  do 
that,  I  suppose;  but  I  never  met  many  of 


282         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

them.  Your  model  is  generally  annoyingly 
virtuous,  but  these  three  are  n't.  Friends  are 
better  than  lovers,  anyway.  I  think  Christ 
and  I  would  get  along  nicely  together  if  we 
ever  met ;  he  would  understand  things,  and 
would  not  weary  you  with  explanations.  The 
blessing  of  a  private  journal  is  that  you  can 
be  as  egotistic  and  irreverent  as  you  wish. 

August  8.  —  We  are  always  begging  for  more 
strength,  instead  of  using  what  we  have.  Now 
and  here  is  good  enough  chance  for  anybody. 
If  only  we  would  do  and  be  without  forever 
prating  or  thinking  about  it.  Why,  look  at 
that  poor  little  tumbler  full  of  forget-me-nots 
I  picked  the  other  day;  some  of  them  have 
grown  half  an  inch  since  they  were  torn  from 
their  home.  A  month  hence  I  shall  be  so 
busy  that  I  shall  have  no  time  to  be  philo 
sophical;  that  will  be  one  good  thing. 

August  12.  —  I  have  been  out  of  doors  with 
grandpa  nearly  all  the  time  the  last  few  days ; 
he  seems  perfectly  well,  but  pines  for  some 
thing  to  do.  I  hardly  see  what  is  the  next 
move. 

August  13. —  Cousin  Lodema  was  found  dead 
in  her  bed  this  morning,  and  I  must  go  to 
Harborside  at  once ;  shall  ask  grandpa  to  go 
too. 

August  14.  —  There  is  nothing   to  do,  the 


One  or  Two.  283 

housekeeper  is  competent;  the  undertaker  in 
a  city  attends  to  all  the  external  details  ;  only 
the  burial  to-morrow  from  the  old  stone  church. 
She  lies  so  peaceful  and  sleepful  in  her  cedar 
coffin  ;  they  say  she  apparently  died  without  a 
motion.  She  has  been  ripening  and  richening 
ever  since  I  have  known  her,  —  not  so  hard 
and  prim  as  they  say  she  used  to  be.  Now  if 
I  could  only  keep  her  school  together  as  her 
memorial ;  but  if  scholars  fall  off  I  never 
could  pay  the  rent  of  this  big  house.  Indeed, 
I  have  no  right  to  decide  anything,  only  I 
wish  I  could  show  I  mourn  her  by  doing  what 
she  liked.  Somehow,  though,  I  am  not  sor 
rowful  or  stricken.  She  deserved  a  good  rest, 
but  I  cannot  pray  she  have  rest  eternal,  for 
such  as  she  would  never  endure  it.  Let  light 
perpetual  shine  upon  her,  Lord !  After  the 
burial  I  am  going  to  help  the  housekeeper  set 
cousin's  little  belongings  to  rights. 

August  15.  —  A  Christian  burial;  that's  all, 
and  that's  enough:  flowers,  and  some  tears 
from  dozens  of  her  girls,  young  and  old,  and 
good  cheer  of  upward  and  onward  hope 
from  the  old  minister.  I  would  just  as  soon 
die  myself,  if  I  could  die  that  way,  when 
my  time  comes.  She  never  made  too  much 
trouble  about  anything,  precise  as  she  used  to 
be ;  and  so  she  died  as  she  would  have  wished. 


284         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

For  me,  I  would  prefer  to  dissipate  into  space 
when  my  time  came;  but  such  a  burial  as 
hers,  all  the  way  from  the  solemn  granite 
church  out  to  that  sweet  sunny  bank  by  the 
ocean  inset,  is  the  next  best  thing.  And  her 
legacy  is  like  what  grandpa's  will  be :  a  thou 
sand  memories  of  modest  faithfulness. 

August  17. —  To-day  came  a  lawyer,  for 
the  reading  of  the  will ;  never  thought  of  such 
a  thing,  or  supposed  she  would  think  it  worth 
while  to  make  one  ;  but  it  was  like  a  bit  of  an 
old  English  novel.  She  owned  this  place,  it 
seems,  and  the  lawyer  says  she  was  a  rather 
rich  woman  besides.  I  am  her  sole  heir,  and 
may  carry  on  the  school  or  not  as  I  choose. 
Of  course  I  shall ;  I  hate  money  save  as  some 
thing  to  give  away.  But  grandpa  is  now  a 
rich  man;  that  is,  rich  for  Bellwood.  Who 
ever  dreamed  it? 

August  20.  —  "  Estimated  value  of  real  prop 
erty,  $25,000;  personal  property,  $36,294.17; 
total,  $61,294.17."  That  ever  this  poor  jour 
nal  should  become  a  ledger !  I  will  go  on 
with  the  school,  and  I  have  a  new  teacher 
already  in  mind ;  that  will  be  six  in  all,  if  the 
school  continues  to  prosper.  Annus  mirabilis  ; 
so  many  things  have  happened  since  Decem 
ber  31  became  January  i. 

August  23.  —  Somehow  I  cannot  sleep  lately; 


One  or  Two.  285 

I  lie  awake  and  think  and  think,  that  is  all,  and 
do  not  care  to  eat.  What  of  it?  but  grandpa 
somehow  found  it  out,  and  got  frightened,  and 
sent  up  home  for  Dr.  Urquhart  without  my 
knowledge.  The  funny  part  of  it  was  that 
Don  Quixote  came  too.  He  had  never  seen 
his  master  get  on  a  railroad  train,  and  so 
jumped  aboard  too  late  to  be  put  off.  I  be 
lieve  his  fuzzy,  honest  little  face  did  me  as 
much  good  as  his  master's.  The  doctor  said 
something  about  my  being  so  tired  I  did  n't 
know  it;  but  I  am  sure  I  never  felt  so  much 
like  working  in  my  life.  He  told  me  to  get 
out  my  notices  for  the  school  year  and  then 
take  grandpa  and  go  just  where  we  both 
wanted  to,  for  a  solid  ten  days.  Where 
shall  it  be? 

August  2$. — The  doctor  said  I  was  not  to 
be  crossed  in  anything,  so  I  decided  to  "  do 
just  what  we  both  wanted  to,"  videlicet,  go 
home  to  Bellwood.  I  'm  going  to  go  and 
play  in  the  graveyard  everyday  but  Sunday, 
and  make  leaf-wreaths  and  take  grandpa  along 
for  'playmate,  and  likewise  Don  Quixote,  if  I 
can  inveigle  him  up  there,  once  in  a  while. 

September  7.  —  Bellwood  is  a  dear  old 
heaven,  and  grandpa  a  false-toothed  angel,  and 
I  a  lazy  good-for-nothing.  I  despise  one  thing 
here,  however,  —  the  sickening  talk  about  my 


286          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

trumpery  new  money.  You  would  think  I  had 
become  a  magnifico.  Just  one  person  has 
spoken  about  its  being  good  for  grandpa,  and 
just  two  have  had  the  grace  to  say  nothing 
about  it  at  all,  —  one  is  Dr.  Urquhart  and  the 
other  is  Don  Quixote. 

September  1 8,  Harborside.  —  School  opened 
day  before  yesterday,  with  more  girls  than 
ever;  why,  I  can't  guess.  Nowadays  I  sleep 
like  a  statue  and  eat  like  a  chanty  pupil.  Dr. 
Urquhart  said  he  wanted  to  turn  my  soul  out 
of  doors  and  give  my  body  a  chance ;  he 
seems  to  have  done  it,  what  with  his  cheery 
smile  and  his  vicious,  bitter,  nondescript,  com 
pact,  quintessential  drug-store,  a  teaspoonful 
before  meals. 

October  4.  —  Waked  up  saying,  "  Oh,  how 
suddenly  are  my  works  brought  to  confusion; 
they  swiftly  complain,  and  come  to  end  !  "  — 
quite  a  biblical  swing;  A.  W.  among  the 
prophets,  and  a  sort  of  Jeremiah  at  that.  But 
the  only  time  I  'm  tempted  to  blueness,  lat 
terly,  is  when  I  think  how  much  of  life  is 
taken  with  drudgery !  The  school-teacher 
leads  a  pack  of  youngsters  a  little  way  up  a 
pleasant  hill,  and  then  goes  back  to  the  foot  to 
start  all  over  again.  No  climbing  for  one's 
self  to  far  away  summits ;  no  long,  daring  jour 
neys  to  lands  of  sunrise  or  moonset;  nothing 


One  or  Two.  287 

but  giving  out  one's  personality.  A  tenth  of 
the  world  leads,  four-tenths  are  dragged,  five- 
tenths  fall  by  the  way  into  the  stagnant  ditch. 
There  's  pessimism  for  you !  I  said  I  was 
going  to  make  this  wretched  book  a  safety- 
valve.  Of  course  I  really  know  that  grandpa, 
and  cousin  Lodema,  and  I,  and  Queen  Victoria, 
and  Doctor  Urquhart,  and  wool-spinners,  and 
all  of  us  generally,  have  to  keep  at  it.  So  do 
the  glorious  sun  and  the  lazy  moon;  there 
is  n't,  thanks  be  to  heaven,  a  moveless  thing  in 
the  universe. 

October  29.  —  Whom  would  I  like  to  re 
semble?  My  mother,  as  I  dream  of  her  and 
believe  she  must  have  been,  and  is  to-day,  and 
will  be  when  we  meet ;  my  grandfather,  trying 
so  bravely  to  be  busy  in  doing  nothing,  and 
going  daily  to  the  public  library  to  read  and 
reflect  concerning  his  newest  axiom  (his  work 
is  harder  than  mine)  ;  any  brave,  simple,  self- 
sacrificing,  unegotistic  toiler, — say,  for  instance, 
a  backwoods  doctor  in  northern  Michigan. 
I  'd  like  to  write  a  novel  with  an  M.D.  for  the 
hero ;  the  trouble  would  be  to  get  a  heroine ; 
"  helpmeets "  are  so  flat  and  insipid.  There 
are  some  people  whom  it  is  an  inspiration  just 
to  have  met,  though  you  go  your  way  and 
they  theirs,  and  though,  perhaps,  they  do  not 
have  the  highest  intellectual  capacity.  What 


288          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

puts  doctors  into  my  head,  I  wonder?  Be 
cause  I  have  had  so  much  to  do  with  them 
this  year,  I  suppose.  Did  Doctor  Urquhart 
name  his  dog  Don  Quixote  because  he  had 
read  the  book?  I  never  knew  that  he  was  a 
"  great  reader,"  but  one  day  he  mentioned, 
quite  accidentally,  "  Tristram  Shandy,"  the 
"Religio  Medici,"  "  Rab  and  his  Friends," 
"Walton's  Lives,"  and  "The  Quarterly  Re 
view,"  —  a  curious  lot.  He  seems  to  know 
more  than  he  seems  to  —  might  give  that  sen 
tence  to  my  rhetoric  class  for  correction.  Here 
endeth,  in  this  journal,  stupid  mentions  of  two 
persons,  —  one  is  myself  and  the  other  is 
grandpa's  "  medical  adviser."  Before  dismiss 
ing  him  I  wish  to  give  him  the  credit,  in  this 
highly  public  manner,  of  making  my  life  less 
lonely  and  my  ideals  a  bit  higher,  these  few 
months  that  he  's  been  a  professional  caller  at 
our  house,  or  rather  our  boarding-house  and 
my  house.  Dear  me,  I  never  realized  before 
that  I  don't  live  in  Bellwood  and  do  live  in 
Harborside.  There  is  the  7  again.  Now  for 
more  important  entries  in  this  book,  or  none. 
Still,  it  was  to  be  semi-personal,  a  tomb  of  my 
worst  self.  Never  mind,  I  '11  let  it  be  a  Liberty 
Hall.  A  journal  need  not  be  consistent,  par 
ticularly  one  that  will  never  be  read. 

November  2$,  Thanksgiving.  —  I  am  thank- 


One  or  Two.  289 

ful,  and  thankful  all  through.  This  is  a  good 
world,  and  now  I  know  it.  And  the  best  fun 
is  this  going  out  into  others ;  what  a  fortunate 
pursuit  is  the  teacher's.  On  a  holiday  one  has 
time  to  think  it  all  over.  I  believe  I  would 
not  go  back  to  a  year  ago  if  I  could.  I  think 
grandpa  was  a  bit  dreary  not  to  be  in  Bell- 
wood,  however,  the  first  time  in  his  life.  He 
frets  a  little  about  being  supported ;  I  tell  him 
I  am  beginning  to  pay  back  debts.  Happy 
thought!  —  make  him  treasurer  of  the  con 
cern;  I  hate  accounts.  I  will. 

December  8.  —  Doctor-  U  Some  students 
are  like  the  walls  of  the  class-room,  —  the 
sound-waves  of  the  teacher's  voice  strike  them, 
and  that  is  all. 

December  22.  —  Sometimes  you  find  in  a 
stray  corner  of  a  newspaper  that  which  is  more 
to  your  life  than  many  a  dull  chapter  in  a 
famous  book.  I  read  to-day  a  little  story  of  a 
big  dog,  caught  over  night  on  an  ice-floe  on 
Lake  Michigan.  They  could  n't  rescue  him, 
and  he  could  n't  swim  away,  half  frozen  to  the 
cake  ;  so  when  the  morning  storm  howled  and 
a  huge  wave  was  blown  toward  his  forlorn  raft, 
he  turned  to  the  ice-blocks  crashing  upon  him, 
gave  a  great,  bold,  defiant  bark,  as  though  he 
were  quoting  the  line,  "  I  can  resist  no  more, 
but  will  not  yield,"  and  — died  like  a  dog. 


290          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

December  25.  —  Last  night,  Christmas  eve, 
an  aurora  swirled  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  a 
great  cloudy  angel,  with  outstretched  arms, 
spread  wings,  and  long,  floating  drapery,  — 
seemingly  darting  down  to  earth.  Somehow 
I  felt  as  though  it  meant  my  next  year  would 
be  a  bright  one  to  me.  The  incredible  and 
impenetrable  stupidity  of  some  of  the  girls  is 
my  greatest  grief  just  now.  If  they  were  hate 
ful  I  would  not  mind  it,  but  amiable  and  will 
ing  brainlessness  makes  the  teacher  aweary, 
aweary.  Yet  external  troubles  are  n't  much 
when  you  are  doing  your  best.  Why  was  I  so 
crushed  last  spring,  then?  Surely  I  had  meant 
to  do  my  best  before  all  the  awfulness  happened. 

January  8.  —  I  dreamed  last  night  that  I 
met  the  Spectre  of  the  Universe  on  the  street 
corner,  and  it  said :  "  Chant  the  dirge  of 
defeat;"  but  I  replied:  "  No,  I  will  ring  the 
Devil's  knell,  for  Satan  died  when  Christ  was 
born ;  "  and  then  I  ran  away  as  fast  as  I  could. 

February  4.  —  When  things  go  worst  then 
they  go  best,  as  the  tired  and  thankful  teacher 
knows  very  well,  for  right  after  you  fail  to  get 
an  answer  to  some  such  question  as  "  What  is 
the  subject  of  Gray's  Elegy?  "  the  brighter 
pupils  will  cheer  you  by  putting  into  their 
examination-books  such  bits  of  originality  as 
these :  "  In  the  Puritan's  view  it  was  a  sin  to 


One  or  Two.  291 

listen  to  the  birds  singing;  "  "  Poe  was  a  poet 
of  the  world  between  the  living  and  the  dead ;  " 
"  literature  is  not  only  the  artistic  expression 
of  thought,  but  is  the  artistic  expression  of 
thought  which  has  enduring  value.  Life,  love, 
moral  and  religious  truth  —  these  are  the  most 
profound  subjects  of  human  thought." 

What  great  moralists  young  people  are ! 
Old  ones,  too  often,  get  over  it  and  quote 
Carlyle  and  Ecclesiastes.  Grandpa,  however, 
has  a  young  head  on  old  shoulders.  I  would 
like  to  quote  some  more  things  from  this  pile  of 
literature-papers ;  but  I  am  keeping  my  note 
book,  not  the  schoolgirls'.  That  was  not  bad, 
though,  a  girl  said  in  the  class  the  other 
day  when  she  called  lyrical  poetry  the  skylark 
of  literature.  My  own  poor  little  muse  seems 
mortuary,  and  the  happier  I  am  the  more  my 
thoughts  on  awful  subjects  roll,  damnation  and 
the  dead.  Do  I  believe  in  damnation,  I  who 
was  brought  up  among  what  the  old  country 
woman  called  "  High  Church  atheists?  "  In 
deed,  I  do.  Lovelessness  is  hell,  and  the  law 
of  cause  and  effect  cannot  be  turned  out  of  the 
moral  world  merely  because  sin  cannot  be 
weighed  or  virtue  hypodermically  injected. 

February  27.  —  Spring  is  almost  here,  the 
oretically.  What  of  it?  If  immortality  is  true, 
the  difference  between  age  and  youth  amounts 


292         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

to  nothing ;  now  is  all.  The  pageant  of  the 
seasons,  though,  helps  us  toward  minor  happi 
ness  and  bedecks  our  greater  delights.  Up 
north  here,  the  twelve-month  brings  naught 
pleasanter  than  the  first  flying  snowflakes  of 
some  Sunday  in  November ;  they  suggest  fire 
light,  and  books  and  all  pleasant  things.  I  am 
half  sorry  winter  is  going.  This  spring  I  am 
going  to  think  joy,  and  not  keep  saying  "  a 
year  ago  to  day,"  as  that  dreadful  anniversary 
draws  near. 

March  23.  —  Grandpa  works  every  day  on 
the  Philosophy  of  Life,  sometimes  in  the  town 
library,  sometimes  prowling  through  the  book 
stores,  and  once  in  a  while  walking  over  to  the 
seaside  cliffs  and  cogitating  there.  He  declares 
that  a  maxim  a  day  is  too  much  to  write,  on 
the  average,  and  one  a  week  a  good  se'nnights' 
task;  I  should  think  so;  most  people  cannot 
philosophize  quickly,  or  by  measure.  He 
likewise  avers  that  the  book,  if  it  ever  is 
brought  out,  shall  be  issued  in  blue  paper- 
sided  boards,  leaves  wholly  untrimmed,  with 
printed  paper  label  on  yellow  cloth  back.  If 
so,  I  fear  me  it  will  find  few  purchasers,  but 
who  cares?  Maybe,  some  time,  years  gone 
by,  a  stray  reader  will  pick  it  up  on  the  five 
cent  sidewalk  case  and  take  it  home,  and  say  at 
length :  "  Here  is  a  book.1'  Most  generations, 


One  or  Two.  293 

though,  don't  take  much  trouble  to  save  that 
which  their  predecessors  have  not  singled  out. 
Every  author,  however,  hopes  that  if  buried, 
he  may  rise  again ;  and  then  what  a  pleasure 
he  gives  his  discoverer !  If  you  are  the  only 
one  who  really  appreciates  a  book  and  calls  it 
great,  why,  then,  how  much  wiser  are  you  than 
anybody  else. 

March  24.  —  Hope  deferred  maketh  the 
heart  sick;  very  true,  but  it  also  delighteth 
the  soul.  I  was  writing  about  the  Philoso 
phy  of  Life  yesterday.  I  verily  believe  its 
dear  old  author  takes  ten  times  the  pleasure 
he  would  if  it  were  all  printed  and  bound. 
The  slow  scribbler  makes  his  world  at  leisure, 
and  revises  it  a  dozen  times  before  he  sets  it 
swinging  through  space.  But  what  I  was  go 
ing  to  do,  was  to  steal  a  few  of  his  later  max 
ims  that  have  been  really  helpful  to  me  in 
my  work,  and  hopes,  and  struggles  with  mel 
ancholy,  and  transfer  them  to  this  journal. 
That's  no  theft,  for  he  makes  no  secret  of 
the. great  work  now,  and  is  so  happy  to 
feel  that  he  aids  the  illustrious  Amoret, — 
teacher,  arbiter  elegantiarum,  poetess,  heiress 
(think  of  it!).  I  must  say  that,  putting  laugh 
ing  aside,  I  have  got  comfort  of  one  sort  or 
another  —  from  spiritual  strength  to  fun  in  my 
sleeve  —  out  of  the  dear  heterogeneousness  of 


294         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

these  mots,  pens/es,  maxims,  wise  saws  and 
modern  instances,  dicta,  proverbs,  paradoxes, 
puzzles,  orphicisms :  — 

O  lover  of  life,  does  Life  love  thee  ? 

There  is  such  a  thing  as  carrying  good  sense  en 
tirely  too  far. 

Perfunctory  "  enjoyment  "  is  the  most  melancholy 
thing  in  the  world. 

To  have  hated  him  was  a  religious  education. 

There  is  a  moral  element  in  nature's  struggle  for 
life. 

Mere  self-sacrifice  God  never  asks ;  why,  then,  do 
Christians  stick  pins  into  themselves  for  his  greater 
glory  ? 

Do  you  doubt  ?  look  at  the  tinted  cloud  or  the 
twilight  ocean,  and  hear  the  song-bird  at  dawn. 

The  ideal  is  the  ultimate  real. 

When  fades  and  fails  the  inner  light  of  any  man's 
conscience,  then  for  one  soul  eternity  begins  to 
dwindle. 

That  last  is  solemnly,  beautifully  true ;  life 
without  it  would  be  hideous  gray  chaos,  while 
with  it  night  is  day,  —  but  the  wording  is  too 
preachy ;  I  must  tell  grandpa  to  strike  it  out 
and  let  the  one  just  before  stand  for  both. 
We  must  allow  people  to  work  out  their  own 
thoughts,  and  not  do  their  thinking  for  them. 

April  i. —  I  have  been  offered  $30,000  for 


One  or  Two.  295 

this  house  —  this  "place,"  as  Chaucer  would 
call  it ;  and  my  lawyer  advises  me  to  sell.  I 
suppose  I  ought  to  go  on,  from  loyalty  to 
cousin's  memory,  but  I  am  tired  to-day,  and 
homesick  for  Bellwood  and  Don  Quixote. 
Somehow  it  seems  to  lower  one  to  have  to 
talk  about  money  matters,  especially  when 
you  have  n't  earned  one  cent  of  the  money. 
Grandpa  says  that  is  n't  so,  and  that  the 
will  expressly  said  I  was  the  fit  heir,  by 
"  proved  competence  and  conspicuous  dis 
cretion."  Cousin  was  partial.  She  thought 
of  retiring  herself  in  a  year  or  two,  though, 
and  she  once  said  the  only  property  she  cared 
to  leave  was  her  memory  in  the  minds  of  those 
who  knew  her. 

April  7.  —  Cutting  from  an  article  in  the 
last  number  of  Days :  "  Fiction,  at  its  best, 
is  the  highest  form  of  prose,  because  it  de 
lineates  the  ideal  in  terms  of  the  real,  or  por 
trays  the  real  and  the  local  and  the  temporary 
in  such  fashion  as  to  enable  the  reader,  though 
of  other  times  and  places,  to  recognize  in  the 
printed  page  some  touch  of  perennial  art, 
some  beautiful  or  noble  portrayal  of  nature 
and  human  nature." 

May  i.  —  Grandpa  has  been  home  on  a 
little  visit,  and  for  the  last  two  days  I  have 
begrudged  every  minute  of  school  time,  I  so 


296         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

wanted  to  hear  him  tell  it  all  over  and  over. 
Bellwood  contains  some  pretty  small  timber, 
but  it  is  big  enough  for  downright,  faithful, 
brave,  cheery  goodness  in  the  daily  toil,  and 
morning  joys,  and  evening  sorrows  of  this 
world  of  ours.  When  one  thinks  of  the  way 
in  which  some  people  just  go  on  and  on, 
making  life  just  a  little  better  for  their  having 
existed  that  space  of  twenty-four  hours,  he 
fairly  gets  angry  at  mere  vegetation  and  mod 
ern  paganism,  and  declares  that  a  good  man 
or  woman  is  the  only  decent  thing  in  garret 
or  palace.  I  am  so  tired  of  people  who  are 
always  thinking  about  themselves  that  I  half 
worship  those  who  just  do  for  others  without 
even  thinking  about  anybody  at  all.  Don't 
they  ever  get  tired?  I  do ;  I  am  too  tired  to 
re-read  what  I  've  just  written ;  but  I  'm  thank 
ful  to  say  that  my  enthusiasm  is  better  than 
my  rhetoric,  and  that  I  like  to  hear  grandpa 
tell  how  some  people  are  still  making  the  sun 
light  the  brighter  on  that  dear  old  riverside 
hill.  The  two  shops  next  north  of  our  old 
one  are  to  be  rebuilt,  with  "  mansard  roofs ;  " 
dear  me !  Don  Quixote  had  his  leg  broken 
last  winter  by  a  boy  who  threw  an  icy  snow 
ball,  but  he  (D.  Q.)  had  a  splint  made  and 
soon  got  well,  not  lame  a  bit.  I  wish  I  could 
have  bitten  the  boy  in  return ;  but  I  suppose 


One  or  Two.  297 

the  mere  dog  felt  the  fault  all  his  own  in  being 
just  in  line  of  the  snowball. 

May  15. — Isn't  it  pathetic  to  see  the  dun 
and  dreary  way  in  which  people  try  to  get  out  of 
the  humdrum  !  Take  their  books,  for  instance. 
Grandpa  and  I  had  to  make  a  call  out  in  the 
country  this  afternoon,  and  I  had  the  curiosity 
to  note  the  intellectual  resources  of  what  the 
Canadians  would  call  the  "  drawing-room  "  of 
the  establishment.  The  house  was  not  exactly 
a  literary  Sahara,  but  its  few  books  had  been 
gathered  by  the  irony  of  v  luck.  There  was  a 
huge  "  family  Bible,"  the  neglected  fetich  of 
the  unwarmed  parlor,  resting  on  the  chilling 
marble-top  table  in  begilt  grandeur.  Grouped 
about  it,  in  awkward  attitudes  hardly  suggest 
ing  present  use,  were  a  subscription  history  of 
the  United  States,  a  "  fringed "  copy  of  an 
evangelical  hymn,  the  Poems  Sacred,  Passion 
ate,  and  Humorous  of  N.  P.  Willis,  —  a  wed 
ding  present  dated  1850  in  the  thin  pointed 
chirography  of  the  time,  —  an  autograph  al 
bum,  and  the  inevitable  collection  of  counterfeit 
presentments  of  family  worthies,  caught  by  the 
rural  photography  of  the  past  three  decades. 
Elsewhere,  in  a  "  what-not,"  were  half  a  dozen 
text-books,  neither  very  new  nor  very  valuable, 
Holland's  "  Kathrina,"  "  The  Wide,  Wide 
World,"  well  worn,  a  few  juveniles,  ill-worn, 


298          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

Gospel  Hymns   Number  2,   and  a  campaign 
biography  of  Samuel  J.  Tilden. 

July  i.  — What  an  irregular  thing  a  journal 
is !  I  have  n't  had  a  minute  for  making  an 
entry  since  the  school  year  began  to  draw  — 
or  rather  to  scurry — to  a  close.  Everything 
went  pretty  well  for  the  first  year  under  a 
green  hand,  though  I  can  see  chances  for  im 
provement  should  I  return  and  go  on.  Some 
advisers  urge  me  to  sell,  even  if  I  continue  the 
school,  as  business  is  beginning  to  crowd  on 
this  street.  Meanwhile,  I  have  rented  the  old 
Andrew  K.  Ropes  house  in  Bellwood,  and  we 
are  going  home  for  the  summer,  when  I  shall 
have  plenty  of  time  to  think  things  over, — 
with  two  of  my  good  domestics  from  this  estab 
lishment  to  take  the  house  care.  I  suppose 
Bellwood  will  think  me  a  purse-proud  aristo 
crat,  inflated  by  new  fortune ;  for  up  there  one 
"  help "  is  enough,  and  she  sits  at  the  same 
table.  But  grandpa  and  I  are  going  to  have  a 
good  rest  this  time,  if  we  never  do  again.  He 
is  perfectly  delighted  to  go  back,  and  so  am  I, 
in  a  less  degree ;  for  I  don't  think  it  fair  for 
everybody  to  leave  the  old  sod  to  its  fate  as 
soon  as  he  gets  a  little  money  or  thinks  his 
brains  are  beginning  to  sprout.  We  owe  some 
thing  to  the  soil  that  has  raised  us.  Besides, 
there  are  one  or  two  Bellwoodites  I  really 
would  like  to  get  to  know  better. 


One  or  Two.  299 

6,  Bcllwood.  —  Everything  here  is  more 
beautiful  than  ever,  and  the  scenery  up  and 
down  the  dear,  treacherous  river  was  never 
fairer.  On  the  heights  where  I  walked  yester 
day  still  lies  repose,  and  a  suggestion  of  peace 
ful  twilight  while  the  sun  is  full  in  air. 

July  9.  —  Net  profits  of  the  school  last  year, 
after  paying  all  expenses  (including  grandpa's 
and  mine),  $648.12;  not  much  for  so  hard 
work  and  such  a  big  building,  but  tolerable 
for  a  beginning,  or  an  ending.  What  I  really 
have  brought  back  from  Harborside,  however, 
is  a  sort  of  moral  victory  that  is  not  included 
in  the  above  "  demnition  total."  I  am  no 
Pamela  as  a  moral  diarizer,  nor  do  I  expect  to 
marry  a  missionary;  but  I  am  honest,  I  be 
lieve,  when  I  say  that  I  am  learning  that  they 
live  best  who  try  to  copy  the  life  which  was 
and  which  gave,  the  one  because  of  the  other. 
And  it  is  all  nonsense  to  say  there  are  no 
Nazarenes  nowadays:  there  are  at  least  two 
right  here  in  Bellwood. 

Here  endeth  this  diary,  —  I  'm  tired  of  it ; 
explicit  liber,  laus  Deo.  I  am  going  to  burn 
it  up  in  the  big  fireplace  behind  the  hideous 
stove  in  the  parlor.  I  want  to  see  whether 
that  north  chimney  will  draw  next  winter,  pro 
vided  we  plan  to  stay  in  the  house. 


300         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 


XII. 

THE   WORLD   ROLLS   EASTWARD. 

A  MORET  sat  at  the  piano,  in  the  swift 
JL\  twilight  that  followed  a  bright  day  of 
the  next  autumn.  The  night  air  was  chilly; 
the  elm  trees  were  bare,  most  of  the  maples 
had  lost  their  glory,  and  even  the  maroon  of 
the  oaks  was  quietly  fading  and  falling. 
Within,  a  placid  little  wood  fire  minded  its 
own  small  business  on  the  reopened  hearth  of 
the  big  chimney.  As  the  last  notes  were 
lingeringly  struck,  the  music  sank  into 
Amoret's  mind  as  a  sort  of  summary  of  past 
experiences,  and  it  was  the  most  natural 
thing  for  her  to  pass  into  an  easy  mood  of 
random  retrospect. 

She  was  again  an  inhabitant  of  Bellwood, 
and  now,  as  she  supposed,  a  permanent  one. 
It  had  seemed  better  on  the  whole  to  sell  the 
Tetley  house ;  the  teacher  of  French  and  the 
old  German  who  came  in  from  the  town  to 
instruct  in  modern  languages  had  rented  a 
smaller  building,  christened  it  the  Tetley 


The  World  Rolls  Eastward.         301 

School,  and  reopened  it  chiefly  for  day  schol 
ars  ;  and  so  Amoret  was  free  to  do  what  seemed 
largest  and  best.  Her  grandfather's  evident 
homesickness  and  her  own  pretty  definite 
conclusion  that  charity  might  actually  begin 
at  home,  had  led  her  to  buy  the  Ropes  "  man 
sion  "  of  Bellwood's  old  ship-owning  days, 
and  begin  life  anew  in  the  valley  of  her  small 
girlhood.  The  quick  possession  of  more  or 
less  money  had  not  confused  her  wits  or 
destroyed  her  habit  of  familiarity  with  the 
use  of  smaller  revenues;  and  the  purchase- 
money  paid  for  the  big  house  was  but  a  third 
of  its  cost.  Prudence,  too,  as  well  as  poetic 
justice,  lay  in  her  plan  to  build  on  the  site 
of  the  old  publishing  house  a  neat  new  little 
bookshop,  a  story  and  a  half  high,  to  be  well 
stocked  with  wall-paper,  pretty  leather  goods, 
a  few  etchings  or  lithographs  of  the  better 
order,  some  illustrated  magazines  of  which 
nobody  need  be  ashamed,  and  one  modest  case 
of  standard  books.  All  this  was  for  Mr. 
We,lby,  to  whom  idleness  was  now  become 
irksome,  in  the  restored  health  of  a  wiry 
septuagenarian,  and  who  really  felt  that  he 
could  philosophize  the  better  for  some  daily 
practical  occupation.  It  would  not  be, 
thought  Amoret,  an  expensive  luxury,  even 
with  a  boy  clerk  to  help  the  happy  old  man, 


302         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

who  was  delighted  with  the  plan;  while  the 
unliterary  miscellany  would  sell  at  least  as  well 
as  formerly,  and  the  few  well-chosen  books 
and  etchings  would  accustom  the  community 
to  the  idea  of  a  bookstore  as  it  should  be  — 
an  intellectual  thermometer  of  the  surrounding 
atmosphere.  Mr.  Welby  consented,  provided 
the  pretty  little  architectural  shop  should  be 
of  brick,  with  wooden  shutters,  and  should 
cost  no  more  than  three  thousand  dollars,  he 
being  permitted  to  give  Amoret  his  note  for 
the  money.  Thus  the  two  had  already  begun 
to  make  their  plans  for  its  erection  the  moment 
the  spring  opened. 

Mr.  Welby,  to  whom  planning  ahead  was 
as  delightful  as  it  was  odious  to  Amoret, 
even  determined  to  go  to  "the  cities"  in 
January  to  purchase  stock ;  it  was  more  than  a 
dozen  years  since  he  had  sat  in  King's  Chapel 
or  sipped  his  little  toby  of  porter  in  Old 
Tom's,  and  these  modest  dissipations  of  a 
metropolitan  trip  were  already  beginning  to 
rise  pleasantly  to  mind,  though  he  deceived 
himself  with  the  thought  that  nothing  but 
business  was  in  mind.  Besides,  he  might 
glance  at  the  book-counters  in  the  big  shops 
and  see  how  they  were  printing  and  binding 
really  solid  books  nowadays;  there  was  a 
good  deal  to  be  decided  before  the  "  Philoso- 


The  World  Rolls  Eastward.       303 

phy  of  Life  "could  go  to  press,  perhaps  two  or 
three  years  hence. 

All  this  was  talked  over,  for  the  dozenth 
time,  at  the  tea-table  that  night;  and  after 
they  returned  to  the  fire-lit  library,  the  minds 
of  both  still  turned  toward  the  future  rather 
than  the  past.  The  early  moon  rose  full,  and 
the  shadow  of  the  big-paned  window  began  to 
creep  eastward  across  the  floor  before  Amoret 
or  Mr.  Welby  cared  to  light  the  lamp. 

There  was  a  ring  at  the  door,  and  the 
white-aproned  maid  —  an  importation  from 
Harborside  —  announced  "  Doctor  Urquhart, 
ma'am." 

"Capital,  capital,"  said  Mr.  Welby,  as  he 
jumped  from  his  chair  and  tripped  to  the  door 
with  both  hands  outstretched.  "  Here  's  the 
good  doctor  just  for  a  friendly  call,  when 
neither  Amoret  nor  I  is  sick." 

"You  should  pay  me  as  the  Chinese  do," 
said  Dr.  Urquhart;  "for  keeping  you  well, 
and  stop  the  quid  pro  quo  when  you  fall 
ailing." 

"We  would  think  of  that,"  said  Amoret, 
when  she  had  given  her  greeting,  "  if  you 
would  nevertheless  let  us  have  the  pleasure 
of  your  company  once  in  a  while,  just  to  take 
note  of  things. " 

"Sit  down  by  the  fire,    doctor,"  said   the 


304          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

old  man,  as  he  put  on  a  fresh  stick.  "What 
with  the  blaze  within  and  Luna  without  we  '11 
get  along  very  well." 

"  Moonlight  is  better  than  sunlight  for  social 
bats  like  me,"  said  the  doctor;  "  it 's  not  often 
that  I  allow  myself  a  luxury  like  this.  My 
face  looks  queer  away  from  a  bedside,  I  fear 
me." 

"You  don't  have  the  time,  ah?"  said  the 
elder  man.  "Well,  moonlight  is  a  pretty 
good  thing,  even  spiritual  moonlight,  for 
those  that  must  struggle  along  nights  as  well 
as  daytimes.  Now  take  an  hour's  rest,  doc 
tor,  for  once  in  your  life;  you  are  out  of  the 
grind  to-night,  unless  you  've  left  word  where 
you  are." 

"  May  I  stay  an  hour,  then  ? "  said  he. 
"Well,  life  does  sometimes  seem  a  wearisome 
grind,  but  I  am  most  thankful  for  the  grind ; 
what  would  become  of  one  if  he  had  no  regular 
duties  ? " 

"Exactly,"  said  Mr.  Welby;  "he  would  go 
into  business  again,  as  I  am  going  to  do." 

"Really?" 

"Yes,  indeed,  literally  '  at  the  old  stand.' 
And  Amoret  is  going  to  start  out  in  the  world 
as  general  benefactrix,  she  says. " 

"She'll  have  enough  to  do,"  said  the  doc 
tor,  as  he  turned  toward  the  picturesque 


The  World  Rolls  Eastward.       305 

figure,  half  glowing  and  half  shaded,  by  the 
farther  corner  of  the  fireplace;  "enough  to 
do  without  going  out  of  Bellwood. " 

"I'll  preach  and  you  can  practise,"  said 
she.  "  Or  you  can  go  around  first  and  leave 
me  to  comfort  the  people  afterward,  and  nurse 
them  back  to  life." 

"Good  enough,"  said  the  doctor,  with  the 
hearty  laugh  of  a  man  who  is  enjoying  him 
self;  "they  need  it." 

"  Well, "  said  Amoret,  with  a  tiny  blush  that 
nobody  saw,  "that  belongs  to  the  list  of 
remarks  one  might  have  phrased  otherwise; 
what  I  meant  was  —  " 

"Don't  explain,"  said  her  grandfather; 
"you  meant  that  when  the  doctor  finished 
them  they  should  n't  be  allowed  to  go  to 
grass. " 

"If  people  would  only  go  to  grass,"  said 
the  doctor,  changing  the  subject,  "it  would 
be  all  right;  but  they  go  to  poison-ivy." 

"What  a  comfort  it  would  be,"  said 
Amoret,  comprehensively,  "  if  everybody  were 
perfect ! " 

"  You  are,"  was  the  doctor's  boyish  thought ; 
but  his  manly  lips  said,  more  reservedly,  "  Per 
fection  is  what  we  are  supposed  to  make  our 
goal." 

"And  isn't  it  better,"  said  Amoret,  "that 

20 


306         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

we  can  strain  our  eyes  oat  of  the  flicker  and 
shadow  to  some  distant  glory  like  that  great 
round  moon  over  there!  The  child  wouldn't 
be  so  happy,  if  it  came  tumbling  into  his  lap 
when  he  cried  for  it,  as  you  and  I  who  are 
chasing  it  yet.  Patient  pursuit  is  better  than 
sudden  possession." 

"And  even  more  than  that,"  said  the  doc 
tor;  "I  sometimes  think  we  like  to  lose  a 
thing  and  then  recover  it  to  prize  it  the  more 
for  the  loss.  So  we  tumble  out  of  innocence 
and  climb  to  purity." 

Mr.  Welby  had  been  going  to  say,  "just  as 
a  cat  lets  a  mouse  run  a  little  way  off,"  but  he 
politely  forbore  to  jar  on  the  doctor's  last 
thought. 

"  A  hard  time  certainly  makes  a  good  time 
all  the  more  enjoyable,"  said  Amoret. 

"  Surely  you  and  Mr.  Welby  have  earned 
your  present  comfort,"  said  the  doctor,  who 
knew  all  their  external  troubles,  and,  with  a 
medical  man's  insight,  surmised  that  Amoret 
had  turned  Morland  away,  and  then  been  sorely 
stung  by  his  speedy  death. 

"Oh,  no,  we  haven't;  it  came  by  luck  of 
inheritance,"  said  she.  Somehow  the  doctor 
was  the  one  person  in  Bellwood  to  whom  she 
could  talk  absolutely  freely,  without  fear  of 
misunderstanding  anywhere. 


The  World  Rolls  Eastward.       307 

"But  you  approved  yourself  to  Miss  Tetley, 
as  an  individual,  a  relative,  and  a  person  of 
sense,  I  know." 

"  It  would  be  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that 
she  did  n't  disapprove  of  me.  But  seriously, 
doctor,  nobody  knows  half  as  much  as  you 
about  men  and  things  hereabouts,  and  I  'm 
going  to  trouble  you  in  all  sorts  of  ways. 
See  here,"  and  she  drew  a  bit  nearer  him, 
but  fixed  her  gaze  on  the  fire,  and  made  small 
hills  and  valleys  in  the  ashes.  "Now  this  is 
our  little  secret,  and  you  shall  be  our  father- 
confessor.  This  money  has  come  to  us  un 
sought,  from  a  dear,  good  woman  who  saved  it 
piecemeal  in  a  hard  life;  and  it 's  going  to  be 
managed  just  as  a  trust -fund  for  the  public, 
especially  for  those  who  help  themselves,  or 
would  if  they  could.  Once  for  all,  —  for  I 
don't  want  to  talk  about  it,  I  want  to  do  it,  — 
I  hate  tramps,  and  professional  beggars,  and 
all  that,  and  I  fear  me  I  don't  really  like  the 
'indigent  poor,'  or  dirty-handed  babies,  or 
receptive  missionaries,  or  Causes,  or  Societies 
to  Promote  this  or  that,  or  '  giving  to  the 
Lord,'  or  things  you  ought  to  want  to  help, 
but  are  really  bored  by.  But  I  do  like  to  do 
a  little  good  in  my  own  way,  and  I  'm  going 
to,  and  you  will  help,  won't  you?"  and  the 
little  left  hand  brushed  away  the  black  hair 


308         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

from  the  broad,  low  forehead  that  covered  the 
brown  eyes  that  blazed  in  the  firelight. 

Doctor  Urquhart,  to  his  amazement,  dis 
covered  that  this  bright  personality  was  the 
most  interesting  object  in  the  world ;  and  all 
kinds  of  supplementary  thoughts  rushed  into 
his  head,  of  which  the  mere  joyousness  of  the 
fact  that  she  lived  in  the  same  country  and 
century  with  him  was  the  chief.  And  Amoret 
thought  to  herself  how  good  it  was  to  have 
one  person  in  the  world  who  was  only  a  friend, 
and  who  understood  things;  so  there  came 
again  into  her  mind  the  pleasantness  of  such 
a  free  gladness  of  unsuspicious  companionship. 
Tired  as  she  was  of  helping  people,  or  draw 
ing  them  out,  or  doing  things  lest  she  be 
misunderstood,  Doctor  Urquhart  seemed  to 
her  merely  a  pleasant  fact  for  which  to  be 
thankful. 

"  Indeed  I  will,  if  you  will  let  me,"  said  he, 
and  the  whole  future  became  radiant  for  him, 
what  with  this  one  thing  to  be  in  it. 

"And  we'll  begin  at  Jerusalem,"  said 
Amoret,  "that  is  to  say,  with  Thomas  Welby, 
Esquire,  Bibliopolist,  who  's  to  be  director- 
general  in  the  scheme." 

"I  '11  put  in  the  prudence,"  said  that  indi 
vidual,  "  the  doctor  the  tact  and  Amoret  the 
money,  which  will  be  fair  all  round." 


The  World  Rolls  Eastward.       309 

"I  don't  see,  then,"  said  the  doctor,  "but 
that  poor  I  must  be  the  corner-stone  of  the 
new  temple  of  philanthropy,  for  — 

" '  What  boots  it,  thy  virtue, 
What  profit  thy  parts, 
If  the  one  thing  thou  lackest, 
The  art  of  all  arts.'  " 

"What  do  you  suppose  made  him  leave  that 
out  of  his  revised  poems?"  said  Amoret;  and 
each,  from  this  tiny  dialogue,  thought  to 
measure  the  extent  of  the  other's  reading  and 
thinking. 

"Doctor,"  said  the  bookseller,  "why  is  it 
that  medical  men  are  always  so  cheerful?  Is 
it  because  the  full  life  is  the  useful  and  there 
fore  the  happy  one  ?  " 

"They  aren't  always,"  said  he,  "but  they 
ought  to  be.  Melancholy  helps  nobody,  but 
good  cheer  may.  A  moping  doctor  mistakes 
his  calling  as  much  as  does  a  chattering 
one.  To  tell  the  truth,  we  poor  fellows  some 
times  ache  for  a  chance  to  groan,  or  to  swear, 
or  to  tell  all  about  it.  Don  Quixote  knows 
how  all  the  world  wishes  us  to  help  them,  and 
never  stops  to  think  or  care  whether  we  have 
headaches  or  our  horses  have  surcingles ; " 
and  he  turned  his  face  toward  Mr.  Welby  with 
a  bright  smile.  Amoret  noted  that  his 


310         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

smooth-shaven  face  was  round,  tanned  to  a 
firm  reddish-brown;  his  green  eyes  full  of 
laughter;  his  well  knit  body  neither  short  nor 
tall,  just  a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  of  honest 
bone,  muscle,  and  flesh ;  and  that  it  was  absurd 
that  he  should  have  a  tiny  bald  spot,  perfectly 
round,  on  the  back  of  his  head,  and  a  gray 
patch  above  either  ear. 

"You  look  like  a  monk,  doctor,"  said  she, 
abruptly;  "and  so  you  must  conquer  your 
blasphemous  propensities." 

"  You  said  I  might  be  your  father-confessor," 
said  he,  not  quite  liking  the  word,  as  he 
thought  of  it,  "and  here  you  are  putting  me 
on  the  rack.  But  I  won't  swear  save  before 
you  or  Don  Quixote. "  There  flashed  into  his 
mind  the  idea  that  he  must  change  the  subject 
before  she  thought  of  that  dreadful  confes 
sional-box,  where  lay  one  swiftly  dead ;  and  so 
he  said  to  Mr.  Welby,  "Life,  not  medicine 
or  bookselling,  is  the  thing,  after  all,  is  n't 
it?" 

"Yes;  and  you  might  say  not  religion  and 
not  literature,  either;  ethics  is  the  one  thing 
that  makes  a  man. " 

"  What  a  dreadful  confession  for  an  author 
to  make ! "  said  Amoret. 

Mr.  Welby  had  never  heard  himself  called 
an  author  before,  and  was  visibly  flattered. 


The  World  Rolls  Eastward.       311 

"  I  mean,"  said  he,  "that  books  are  so  often 
hollow." 

"  Vours  won't  be,"  said  she,  determined 
that  his  little  secret,  as  well  as  hers,  should  be 
shared. 

"May  I  ask  what  — " 

"No,  no,  no,  no!  not  quite  yet,"  said  the 

'philosopher     cheerfully;     "I've    set    a    few 

marionettes  of  ideas  against  the  background 

of  life,  and  perhaps  I  '11  pull  their  strings  for 

you  some  day. " 

Amoret,  however,  thought  the  cosy  time 
just  suitable  for  a  few  bits  of  the  Philosophy, 
since  the  talk  of  the  three  friends  had  run  on 
themes  so  varied ;  so  she  got  the  water-soaked 
book  that  had  played  such  a  part  in  the 
melodrama  of  that  night  of  loss  and  rescue. 
No  great  persuasion  was  needed  to  induce  Mr. 
Welby  to  turn  the  warped  leaves,  nor  was  the 
reading  of  some  stray  bits  long  postponed. 
As  the  old  man  read,  the  doctor  felt  that  he 
was  getting  acquainted  with  some  new  tracts 
of -the  bookseller's  brain;  Mr.  Welby  himself 
was  in  a  happy  mood  betwixt  modesty  and 
vanity;  while  for  Amoret,  the  enjoyable 
moment  was  enough. 

Do  you  repent?  then  do  not,  but  do. 

"That  isn't  worded  plainly,"  thought  the 
reader. 


312         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

Of  the  A  B  C  of  life  we  know  nothing. 
Shakespeare  is  intellectual  rather   than   spiritual. 
He  seems  to  have  been  afraid  of  the  future  life. 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  "  said  Amoret. 

"  Have  you  a  right  to  read  his  characters 
into  himself?  "  added  the  doctor. 

"No,  certainly  not,"  said  Mr.  Welby; 
"but  there  is  a  prevalent  drift  in  plots  and 
characters,  and  we  know  he  wrote  the 
sonnets." 

"You  see,"  said  Dr.  Urquhart,  "we  pay 
your  book  the  compliment  of  aroused  dis 
sent;  it  isn't  every  writer  who  can  start  other 
minds  a- working.  We  don't  love  Shake 
speare,  surely." 

Mr.  Welby  smiled,  readjusted  his  glasses, 
and  went  on,  Amoret  meanwhile  tucking 
down  his  cravat,  which  had  risen  above  the 
back  of  his  dickey.  The  philosopher  did  not 
notice  either  evil  or  remedy. 

Why  should  we  rejoice  that  a  good  man  has  gone 
to  enrich  paradise  ?  The  longest  life  is  a  speck  in 
eternity,  and  we  needed  him  here. 

"  Grandpa  is  a  heretic,  you  see. " 

Noblesse  oblige  :  the  Whig  Arian  can  afford  to 
be  tolerant. 

We  miss  the  unregions  of  the  seen  more  than  the 
regions  of  the  unseen. 


The  World  Rolls  Eastward.       313 
"  I  wonder  what  that  means  ?  "  thought  both. 

Let  not  the  tragedy  of  the  old  world  be  followed 
by  the  farce  of  the  new. 

The  great  genius  shows  a  large  sanity  in  his  calm 
superiority  over  the  conventional;  he  shuns  placid 
unideal  content  that  he  may  rise  to  the  true  calm  of 
a  life  for  others. 

"There's  a  good  deal  in  that,"  said  the 
doctor  to  Amoret.  "It 's  all  nonsense  to  say 
that  genius  is  insanity  and  commonplaceness 
a  mark  of  mental  soundness." 

A  man's  talk  should  be  quiet,  gentle,  and  clear-cut, 
and  not  much  of  himself. 

"But  a  bird  is  noisily  egotistic,"  said 
Amoret,  to  which  her  grandfather  added  the 
demonstrable  statement  that  "  A  man  is  n't  a 
bird." 

Make  not  self-renunciation  a  shriveling. 

How  small  a  stone  will  cause  a  stumble. 

The  three  parts  of  salvation :  stop ;  begin ; 
continue. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  animal  world  so  interesting 
as  the  attachment  of  animal  dog  to  animal  man. 

"Good,"  said  the  doctor;  "I'm  glad  you 
put  in  a  word  for  Don  Quixote. " 

"The  other  day,"  quoth  Amoret,  "Judge 
Bennett  said :  '  Old  Jenkins  is  dead,  and  not 


314          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

a  soul  in  town  cares,  not  even  his  wife. '  '  Oh, 
yes, '  said  Gertrude,  quick  as  a  flash,  '  his  little 
brown  dog  does. ' ' 

"Miss  Bennett  is  a  bright  girl,"  said  the 
doctor.  "By  the  way,  speaking  about  dogs, 
did  I  ever  tell  you  how  Don  Quixote's  father 
departed  this  life?  He  was  a  handsome  fel 
low,  of  a  reserved  and  dignified  disposition, 
who  took  it  for  granted  that  the  world  would 
make  way  for  his  self-centred  movements,  as 
it  generally  did.  He  'd  lie  down  in  the  mid 
dle  of  the  road  and  wait  for  carriages  to  turn 
out,  as  a  matter  of  course ;  but  once,  when  he 
was  sitting  on  a  railroad  track  enjoying  the 
morning  breeze,  the  unexpected  happened. 
He  was  as  unsophisticated  as  a  noisy  sparrow 
that  kept  up  its  chittering  outside  my  bedroom 
window  for  a  whole  May  month,  —  once  I 
threw  a  stone  at  it,  but  it  did  n't  know  what 
stoning  meant,  and  continued  its  alleged 
song  as  cheerfully  as  ever.  I  was  the  one 
that  was  ashamed." 

"The  poor  dog!"  said  Amoret,  oblivious 
of  the  sparrow. 

"But  dear  me,"  said  Doctor  Urquhart,  "I 
oughtn't  to  be  interrupting  in  this  way." 

"Your  talk  is  more  interesting  than  mine," 
pleasantly  retorted  Mr.  Welby,  as  he  went 
on:  — 


The  World  Rolls  Eastward.        315 

Nothing  seems  so  important  to  man  as  the  things 
he  forgets ;  so  the  missing  of  heaven  will  be  the 
depth  of  hell. 

Follow  the  trend  of  truth,  and  the  pace  of  God, 
and  let  the  past  path  fade ;  for  the  great  wholesome 
world  turns  on. 

Oh,  the  books  we  've  never  written,  and  the  songs 
we  could  not  sing. 

"Why,  that 's  poetry,"  said  Amoret. 
"  So  is  the  next  one, "  said  he : 

Work  in  work-time, 
Play  in  play-time, 
Worry  at  no  time. 

"No,  it  isn't,"  said  she. 

"But  it's  uncommon  sense,"  said  the  doc 
tor.  "  Say  it  over  again ;  I  want  to  remember 
it,  to  put  it  over  my  office  desk." 

As  we  do  not  remember  when  we  did  not  live,  we 
seem  to  have  lived  forever. 

Catch  but  the  real  meaning  of  "  I  am,"  and  you 
are  a  son  of  God. 

Right  things  abide,  though  they  hide. 

"  But  I  must  stop  this  random  leaf -turning, 
or  I  shall  send  you  both  to  sleep.  The  fault 
of  these  poor  jottings,  I  fear,"  added  the  old 
man,  "is  that  they  look  too  fixedly  within. 
Introspection  has  filled  more  insane  asylums 


316          The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

and  made  more  unhappy  homes  than  anything 
that  can  be  called  a  good." 

"So  it  has,"  said  Doctor  Urquhart;  "but  I 
kept  thinking  of  myself  all  the  time  you  were 
reading,  not  of  you;  I  am  surej<?#  are  helpful 
rather  than  introspective. " 

"I  think  so,  too,"  said  Amoret;  "his  book 
has  really  helped  me  in  sad  or  weary  times, 
until  it  has  fairly  made  me  a  cheerful  philoso 
pher  again,  in  spite  of  myself,  just  as  I  used 
to  be  when  I  was  a  little  girl." 

"And  have  been  ever  since,"  testified  her 
relative. 

"  It 's  a  good  thing  to  have  such  thinkers  as 
you  watching  us  men  in  the  working  world," 
said  the  doctor.  "  When  I  was  a  little  boy  in 
the  old  church,  I  used  to  think  a  small  venti- 
lating-hole  in  the  ceiling  was  to  let  angels  look 
through  to  see  if  the  minister  was  preaching 
right;  and  it  was  a  solemnizing  reflection 
when  it  flashed  over  me,  one  Sunday  after 
noon,  that  perhaps  they  might  turn  their 
eyes  on  me  occasionally."  And  he  rose  to 

g°- 

"Grandpa  is  our  angel,"  said  Amoret. 

"She  said  our,"  thought  the  doctor,  ninety 
minutes  later,  as  he  went  to  his  stable  to  say 
good-night  to  Don  Quixote  and  the  pale  horse 
Mors. 


The  World  Rolls  Eastward.        317 

The  joy  of  winter ! 

On  some  clear  October  afternoon  there  is  a 
chill  in  the  air;  frost  impends  over  the 
weather-wise;  potted  geraniums  are  brought 
into  the  house,  and  belated  tomatoes  are 
sheeted  in  white,  as  though  mimicking  the 
irregular  snow-heaps  so  soon  to  come.  Next 
morning  roof  and  lawn  sparkle  in  a  thin 
sprinkling  of  crystals,  the  scarlet  runners 
hang  limp  beside  the  kitchen  door,  the  ferns 
on  the  bank  are  black  and  unsightly,  and  the 
few  last  withered  elm  leaves  drop  crookedly 
and  clumsily  to  earth.  Next  noon  the  sun 
shine  is  so  warm  as  to  make  one  think  of  May- 
time;  but  as  the  early  twilight  falls  there  is  a 
clearness  of  cloudless  sky  that  foretells  a  repe 
tition  of  the  portent  of  winter.  Then  in 
November,  when  the  shallowest  pools  and  the 
tub  under  the  rain-spout  are  skimmed  with 
brittle  glass,  and  the  sky  has  been  overcast 
for  twenty-four  hours,  one  first  sees  a  stray 
snowflake  sailing  horizontally  against  the 
blackness  of  the  open  barn-door,  and  another, 
and  another,  and  the  snowstorm  has  begun. 
Soon  appear  the  sleds,  and  the  youngsters  try 
to  coast  on  the  inch-covering  of  the  stiffly 
frozen  grass,  into  which  the  runners  helplessly 
sink.  Out  in  the  shed  are  two  barrels  of 
cider,  with  straw  around  their  wooden  bungs, 


3 1 8  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

and  a  bulge  of  white  fizzle  through  the  air 
hole  near  by,  if  the  plug  be  loose.  Strings 
of  corn  hang  high  on  the  wall,  the  pumpkins 
are  piled  in  the  corner,  the  cellar  is  banked 
up,  and  the  evening  lamps  shine  early  out 
upon  the  dim  slopes. 

But  just  before  night  of  some  short  Decem 
ber  day,  when  the  river  is  closed  and  the  hills 
are  mottled  with  gray  and  green  and  some 
new  patches  of  dirty  white,  the  snow  begins 
in  earnest,  and  falls  and  falls  into  three  feet 
of  its  own  accumulated  softness,  not  wholly 
to  be  lost  before  April.  Or  in  January  a  new 
storm  drapes  every  twig  and  herb  with  a  white 
covering,  against  which  stand  the  black  boles 
of  the  elms  or  the  smooth  silences  of  the 
young  beeches.  Twig,  fence-rail,  hayfield, 
and  sheeted  pond  sparkle  in  one  multiform 
glory,  which  Amoret  makes  the  radiant  mirror 
of  the  not  less  serene  pleasures  of  her  own 
heart. 

For  now  was  the  winter  of  her  content. 
The  fact  was  that  she  had  somehow  become,  of 
late,  a  little  girl  again.  Student  and  teacher 
in  the  university  of  life,  once  sorrow-stricken 
and  shamed  by  the  lurid  vision  of  a  lost  soul, 
she  had  grown  backward  to  some  simple, 
childlike  acceptance  of  things.  Doubts  re 
garding  her  failure  or  responsibility  toward 


The  World  Rolls  Eastward.        319 

Rodney  and  Morland  had  faded  before  a  new 
inner  sense  of  attempted  duty  done.  Had 
her  own  attitude  been  other,  day  by  day,  in 
those  other  times,  she  knew  she  would  have 
been  disloyal  to  truth  and  love,  all  for  the 
sake  of  standards  not  her  own,  and  far  enough, 
she  felt,  from  those  of  the  men  and  women 
who  make  the  world  really  worth  living  in. 
Nature  itself  is  not  inexorable  or  false;  and 
she  would  have  been  both  had  Rodney's  easy 
going  epicureanism  or  Morland's  new  morality 
of  individualism  taken  the  place  of  what  she 
felt  to  be  of  lovely  trend.  Once  that  winter, 
indeed,  she  wrote  a  friendly  letter  to  Rodney, 
and  his  reply,  half  hopeless  and  half  cheery, 
showed  at  least  that  there  was  no  poorest 
semblance  of  love  on  either  side,  but  maybe, 
even  yet,  some  tiny  chance  of  friendly  help 
fulness  on  hers. 

And  she  took  things  for  granted,  that  was 
all,  in  a  joy  sometimes  quiet  and  sometimes 
almost  rollicking.  She  was  meant,  she  de 
clared  in  a  not  unkindly  anger,  to  be  good  and 
happy ;  and  how  could  she  really  be  one  if  not 
the  other?  Even  her  money,  of  which  she 
was  neither  ashamed  nor  proud,  was  some 
comfort;  it  enabled  her  to  go  on  without 
worry  for  her  grandfather,  and  to  let  him  live 
where  he  wished  and  as  he  had;  while  for 


320  The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

the  rest,  there  was  enough  unselfishly  to  do 
with  it,  goodness  knew.  What  had  once 
laughingly  been  called  her  profession  of  bene- 
factrix,  interpreted  as  it  was  by  herself,  gave 
her  due  occupation.  Why  shouldn't  one  be, 
said  she  to  herself,  and  do  on  the  basis  of 
being,  just  like  a  flower  or  a  star? 

But  what  of  Doctor  Urquhart?  Simply 
this:  he  found,  right  by  him  in  Bellwood,  in 
indubitable  flesh  and  blood,  the  ideal  which 
he  had  always  worshipped,  but  never  thought 
to  see  with  open  eyes  —  save,  as  he  admitted 
one  day,  that  he  had  dreamed  of  his  goddess 
of  the  True,  the  Beautiful,  and  the  Good  as 
having  an  absolutely  straight  nose.  And 
Amoret?  From  mere  tacit  enjoyment  of  the 
doctor's  talk  and  cheerily  wholesome  presence 
she  had  turned  to  two  moods  of  a  much  more 
definite  sort.  First,  she  thought  of  him  as 
the  only  one  in  the  world  whom  she  could 
endure  to  have  always  around ;  and  then  she 
came  to  reflect,  to  her  amazement,  and  at 
first  to  her  tiny  vexation,  that  her  world 
would  actually  be  lovelier  if  he  were  always 
near  than  if  he  were  not  —  she,  to  whom  all 
others,  even  her  grandfather,  had  sooner  or 
later  seemed  somewhat  obtrusive.  Each, 
indeed,  thought  of  the  other  as  the  one  person 
in  existence  to  whom  the  words  Pleasant 


The  World  Rolls  Eastward.        321 

Friend  might  apply  in  all  resplendent  truth, 
and  winsome  enjoyment,  and  cheery  struggle, 
and  picturesque  vicissitude  and  indispensable 
helpfulness,  forever  and  a  day. 

If  Doctor  Urquhart  had  been  a  smaller  man 
than  he  was,  he  would  have  been  annoyed 
that  Amoret  had  a  country  fortune,  and  he 
but  a  house,  and  barn,  and  horse,  and  dog,  and 
receipts  for  his  debts,  and  naught  but  one 
modest  savings-bank  account  beside.  And  if 
Amoret's  soul  had  been  a  smaller  one,  she 
would  have  wished  that  he  might  go  to  some 
larger  town,  there  to  be  freed  from  the  black 
midnights  and  pauper  tyranny  of  a  country 
doctor's  life.  But,  next  to  the  fact  that  she 
had  come  to  feel  toward  him,  in  all  sincerity, 
the  three  words  /  like  you,  there  had  grown  in 
her  mind  a  conviction,  at  first  rather  unwel 
come,  that  bright,  heartful,  helpful  goodness 
was  better,  if  you  must  choose,  than  cold  men 
tality.  The  books,  to  be  sure,  had  piously 
said  just  that  again  and  again,  and  Amoret 
had  despised  their  preachments.  What  con 
quered  her  prejudices  against  mere  goodness 
—  at  first  she  had  thought  the  doctor  hum 
drum —  was  the  discovery  that,  in  him  at 
least,  calmness  was  not  a  loss  of  enthusiasm 
but  a  gain  of  tranquillity;  that  in  life,  as  in 
nature,  simplicity  is  beauty;  and  that  a  soul 
21 


322         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

can  combine  the  idle  glow  of  a  summer's  noon 
with  the  force  of  all  perfect  things  that  merely 
act  as  they  must,  without  waste  of  time  or 
strength.  Once  Amoret  told  him  she  would 
have  loved  him  as  much  if  he  had  been  a 
woman.  "Would  you  me  if  I  had  been  a 
man  ? "  she  added ;  and  he  replied,  "  I  don't 
know." 

When  did  this  love-friendship  begin? 
Neither  could  tell.  When  did  it  end  ?  Never. 
When  did  either  first  speak  of  it  ?  It  would 
not  be  easy  to  answer  even  that  question ;  but 
perhaps  one  day  of  springtide  localized  it  as 
truly  as  any. 

Amoret,  that  Thursday,  was  minded  to  take 
an  early  morning  walk  to  the  hilltop;  for 
now  that  her  time  was  her  own,  the  sunrise 
and  she  were  frequent  friends.  As  she  climbed 
the  familiar  path  day  grew  slowly,  great 
clouds  rolled  majestically  up  from  the  horizon, 
and  the  wet  grass  and  young  leaves  caught 
enough  light  to  glisten  in.  The  sky  was  all 
pale  gold  when  she  reached  the  top  and  looked 
down  on  the  village,  which  lay  hushed  under 
the  blessing  of  dawn.  Lighter  and  brighter 
grew  the  day,  the  sky  flushed  all  over  a  rosy 
hue,  and  the  rim  of  the  sun  rose  above  the 
horizon  beyond  the  river.  Then  it  grew  clear 
and  full  in  the  fresh  morning  air;  the 


The  World  Rolls  Eastward.        323 

branches  swayed  rhythmically  to  and  fro  in 
the  freshening  breeze;  every  blade  of  grass, 
tipped  with  its  pearly  drop,  nodded  and  bowed 
to  its  neighbor;  while  the  robins  sang  blithely 
as  they  flitted  about.  It  was  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth,  and  the  little  hills  were  joy 
ful  together  before  the  Lord. 

In  her  dawntide  delight,  Amoret  felt  utterly 
at  one  with  nature ;  it  was  a  part  of  her,  she 
of  it.  Through  the  veil  of  things  she  seemed 
to  see  some  of  the  secrets  of  being.  Stoop 
ing  to  pluck  a  dandelion,  she  stopped  at  the 
remembrance  of  an  old-time  fancy  that  flowers 
lived  as  truly  as  she,  and  that  she  must  n't 
hurt  them  by  tearing  them  from  their  stalks. 
Anyway,  there  was  a  certain  something  within 
her  that  told  of  the  Tightness  of  joy,  of  the 
love  of  love  and  of  life,  of  the  beautifulness 
of  being.  In  her  mood,  her  childish  dreams 
had  all  come  true,  for  she  was  a  child  again; 
but  more,  if  the  strength  of  knowledge  were 
as  simply  true  as  the  innocence  of  inexperi 
ence. 

All  the  way  down  the  hill,  when  she  started 
home,  there  were  plenty  of  pleasant  things, 
—  so  pleasant  that  she  enjoyed  them  every 
one  in  anticipatory  memory:  a  cat  and  four 
kittens  playing  in  and  out  of  a  little  hole  at 
the  foot  of  the  big  elm  in  old  Diantheya 


324         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

Blynman's  back  yard;  a  queer,  lonely,  suspi 
cious  bird  flying  in  and  out  of  the  lilac  bushes 
in  front  of  the  Kitfield  house  —  Amoret  was 
sure  the  bird's  name  must  be  the  skulk;  a  big 
dog  sitting  contentedly  by  some  daffodils,  as 
though  he  had  a  bit  of  aesthetic  sense  of  their 
straight  loveliness,  or  at  least  some  physical 
pleasure  in  the  pleasant  environment.  He 
made  her  think  of  Don  Quixote,  who,  she  was 
sure,  was  a  moralist,  whether  or  not  he  was 
an  artist. 

Before  she  knew  it,  she  turned  her  free 
feet  toward  the  graveyard,  now  bright  in  the 
sun  and  breeze  and  song  of  the  birds.  And 
it  was  Don  Quixote  that  found  her  there  and 
ran  bounding  up  in  a  hurry  to  get  as  much  of 
her  time  as  he  might,  without  losing  more  of 
his  master's  society  than  he  must.  The  wel 
come  was  hilarious  on  either  side,  for  both, 
though  they  did  not  know  it,  were  too  happy 
to  enjoy  loneliness  for  long. 

Doctor  Urquhart  had  been  going  along  on 
the  other  side  of  the  street,  and  was  puzzled 
that  all  his  whistling  for  Don  Quixote  was  in 
vain,  for  it  was  not  usual  for  that  evolved 
representative  of  age-end  dogdom  to  be  obliv 
ious  alike  to  the  sanctity  of  grave  grass  and 
to  the  ethics  of  obedience.  The  reason  was 
soon  apparent,  for  the  happy  dog  and  happy 


The  World  Rolls  Eastward.       325 

girl  became  audible  as  well  as  visible  under 
the  thickly  crowded  pines  that  made  a  forlorn 
square  around  the  Rotherwell  tombstones. 

When  the  doctor  walked  briskly  across  with 
a  "May  I  come,  too?  "  Amoret  turned  around 
in  a  queer  disorder:  hat  wrongside  before,  hair 
in  eyes,  teeth  all  a-laughing,  and  two  great 
mud  marks  left  by  Don  Quixote's  eager  feet 
on  the  front  of  her  fuzzy  plaid  dress. 

"Oh,  good,"  said  the  girl;  "now  the  whole 
world  's  here." 

"Till  death  do  us  part?"  said  the  doctor, 
hat  in  one  hand,  small  medicine  case  in  other, 
a  curious  little  tremor  in  his  jolly  voice,  a 
strange  bit  of  confident  hope  in  his  happy 
glance. 

"Death  doesn't  end  all,"  said  Amoret,  and 
wondered  what  she  was  saying,  and  why. 

"Forever,"  said  the  doctor.  He  caught 
her  hand,  and  his  soul  flew  out  in  a  little  kiss, 
which  Amoret  dodged,  though  her  hand  stayed 
captive.  But  the  kiss  just  grazed  her  cheek, 
a  humming-bird  on  the  wing. 

Don  Quixote  was  visibly  puzzled,  but  his 
attention  was  distracted,  just  then,  by  a  scurry 
through  the  granite  gate-posts  of  the  grave 
yard.  It  was  a  boy,  running  up  all  breath 
less  and  dusty,  to  say,  between  his  gasps, 
"Oh,  doctor,  come  right  off,  little  Jimmy 


326         The  End  of  the  Beginning. 

Nelligan's  a-broken  his  leg,  and  they  found 
where  yer  was,  and  he's  a-howlin'  awful,  and 
I  've  been  a-chasin'  yer  everywhere." 

The  doctor  went,  and  so  did  Don  Quixote, 
after  an  afflicting  period  of  indecision  marked 
by  drooping  ears,  squat  haunches,  and  a 
pathetic  interrogation-mark  in  either  eye. 
Duties  may  never  conflict,  but  pleasures  do. 

They  were  all  gone,  save  she  who  was  left 
alone  in  her  childish  playground,  among  the 
trees  and  the  graves  she  knew  and  loved  so 
well.  She  looked  down  the  gravelled  roadway 
until  she  saw  Don  Quixote  gallop  southward 
in  an  abrupt  right  angle  at  the  gate,  at  length 
accepting  his  immediate  future  with  an  alac 
rity  that  he  apparently  deemed  not  inconsis 
tent  with  the  bygone  regret  of  ten  seconds 
before.  Then  she  climbed  on  the  slab  of  the 
Bexley  tomb,  and  unconsciously  dangled  her 
feet  as  of  yore. 

"And  this  is  the  end  of  the  beginning," 
said  Amoret. 


THE  END. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A    001  415275    5 


